"Oh, my dear! I'm sure your father and I--"

"Yes, yes," said Mary, indulgently. "I don't mean you and papa.
But isn't it propinquity that makes marriages? So many people
say so, there must be something in it."

"Mary, I can't bear for you to talk like that." And Mrs. Vertrees
lifted pleading eyes to her daughter--eyes that begged to be spared.
"It sounds--almost reckless!"

Mary caught the appeal, came to her, and kissed her gaily. "Never
fret, dear! I'm not likely to do anything I don't want to do--I've
always been too thorough-going a little pig! And if it IS propinquity
that does our choosing for us, well, at least no girl in the world
could ask for more than THAT! How could there be any more propinquity
than the very house next door?"

She gave her mother a final kiss and went gaily all the way to the
door this time, pausing for her postscript with her hand on the knob.
"Oh, the one that caught me looking in the window, mamma, the youngest
one--"

"Did he speak of it?" Mrs. Vertrees asked, apprehensively.

"No. He didn't speak at all, that I saw, to any one. I didn't
meet him. But he isn't insane, I'm sure; or if he is, he has long
intervals when he's not. Mr. James Sheridan mentioned that he lived
at home when he was 'well enough'; and it may be he's only an invalid.
He looks dreadfully ill, but he has pleasant eyes, and it struck me