talkative, and the little he did say was neither brilliant nor witty.
With the jollity and "high jinks" (to use a word of Watts's) going on
about her, it is hardly possible that Peter's society shone by contrast.
Yet in drawing-room or carriage, on the veranda, lawn, or yacht's deck,
she was ever ready to give him as much of her attention and help as he
seemed to need, and he needed a good deal. Watts jokingly said that "the
moment Peter comes in sight, Helen puts out a sign 'vacant, to let,'"
and this was only one of many jokes the house-party made over the dual
devotion.

It was an experience full of danger to Peter. For the first time in his
life he was seeing the really charming phases which a girl has at
command. Attractive as these are to all men, they were trebly so to
Peter, who had nothing to compare with them but the indifferent
attitudes hitherto shown him by the maidens of his native town, and by
the few Boston women who had been compelled to "endure" his society. If
he had had more experience he would have merely thought Miss Pierce a
girl with nice eyes, figure and manner. But as a single glass of wine is
dangerous to the teetotaller, so this episode had an over-balancing
influence on Peter, entirely out of proportion to its true value. Before
the week was over he was seriously in love, and though his natural
impassiveness and his entire lack of knowledge how to convey his
feelings to Miss Pierce, prevented her from a suspicion of the fact, the
more experienced father and mother were not so blind.

"Really, Charles," said Mrs. Pierce, in the privacy of their own room,
"I think it ought to be stopped."

"Exactly, my dear," replied her other half, with an apparent yielding to
her views that amazed and rather frightened Mrs. Pierce, till he