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  happened, I spoke to him plainly one night and asked him if he did n’t intend to propose to her, and if not, what were his reasons. What do you suppose they were?”

Mrs. Valentine’s tone implied that a shock was coming.

Dolly sat erect on her mother’s Italian day-bed as one prepared.

“I’m sure I have no idea—how could I have?” she asked.

“Roger said that he did n’t like her wiping her nose through her veil!!”

Dolly flung herself at length on the couch and buried her face in the cushions, her whole body shaking convulsively with silent mirth.

“You may laugh, Dorothea, but this incident, which I have told many times, shows how fantastic, erratic, despotic, and hypercritical men generally are. You will come to your senses some time and realize that no one is likely to bear with your perversities more patiently than Arthur Wilde or Lee Wadsworth, who have both wasted a winter dangling about you.”