After supper, when the dishes had been cleared away, and they sat in
the large south room, and Horace had admired that and its
furnishings, Sylvia led up to the subject.

"I suppose you know a good many people in Boston," she remarked.

"Yes," replied Horace. "You know, I was born and brought up and
educated there, and lived there until my people died."

"I suppose you know a good many young ladies."

"Thousands," said Horace; "but none of them will look at me."

"You didn't ask them?"

"Not all, only a few, but they wouldn't."

"I'd like to know why not?"

Then Henry spoke. "Sylvia," he said, "Mr. Allen is only joking."

"I hope he is," Sylvia said, severely. "He's too young to think of
getting married. It makes me sick, though, to see the way girls chase
any man, and their mothers, too, for that matter. Mrs. Jim Jones and
Mrs. Sam Elliot both came while you were gone, Mr. Allen. They said
they thought maybe we wouldn't take a boarder now we have come into
property, and maybe you would like to go there, and I knew just as
well as if they had spoken what they had in their minds. There's
Minnie Jones as homely as a broom, and there's Carrie Elliot getting
older, and--"