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Mrs Atwater see to yield a -chair, shook her head, and after setting her lips rigidly, opened thee her mind: Julia had acted very abruptly "Why couldn't she have let her poor father know at least a few days before she did?"

Mr Atwater sighed "Why, she explains in her letter that she only knew it, herself, an hour before she wrote"

"Her poor father!" his wife repeated coly

"Why, Mollie, I don't see how father's especially to be pitied"

"Don't you?" said Mrs Atwater "That oldhouse all alone, except a few negro servants?"

"Why, no! About half the houses in the neighbourhood, up and down the street, are fully occupied by close relatives of his: I doubt if he'll be really as lonely as he'd like to be And he's often said he'd give a great deal if Julia had been a plain, unpopular girl I'ly of the opinion, myself, that he'll be pleased about this Of course it may upset him a little at first"

"Yes; I think it will!" Mrs Atwater shook her head forebodingly "And he isn't the only one it's going to upset"

"No, he isn't," her husband admitted seriously "That's always been the trouble with Julia; she never could bear to see; and so, of course, I suppose every one of 'em has a special idea that he's really about the top of the list with her"

"Every last one of 'em is positive of it," said Mrs Atwater "That was Julia's ith 'em!"

"Yes, Julia's always been ood" Thus Mr Atwater summed up Julia; and he was her brother Additionally, since he was the older, he had known her since her birth

"If you ask oes through without a suicide"

"Oh, not quite suicide, perhaps," Mr Atwater protested "I'h"

She failed to fathoht feel that desperate at least," he explained "Prohibition's a safeguard for the disappointed in love"

This phrase and a previous one stirred Florence, who had been sitting quietly, according to request, and "resting", but not resting her curiosity "Who's disappointed in love, papa?" she inquired with an explosive eagerness that slightly startled her preoccupied parents "What is all this about Aunt Julia, and grandpa goin' to live alone, and people co? What is all this, mamma?"