faces at the really gorgeous Spring-like flame of jonquils, but in a
whole chilly, wearisome hour the only red-haired person that passed
was an Irish setter puppy, and the only lame person was a
wooden-legged beggar.

Cold and disgusted as he was, Stanton could not altogether help
laughing at his own discomfiture.

"Why--hang that little girl! She ought to be s-p-a-n-k-e-d," he
chuckled as he climbed back into his tiresome bed.

Then as though to reward his ultimate good-nature the very next mail
brought him a letter from Cornelia, and rather a remarkable letter
too, as in addition to the usual impersonal comments on the weather
and the tennis and the annual orange crop, there was actually one
whole, individual, intimate sentence that distinguished the letter as
having been intended solely for him rather than for Cornelia's
dressmaker or her coachman's invalid daughter, or her own youngest
brother. This was the sentence:

"Really, Carl, you don't know how glad I am that in spite of
all your foolish objections, I kept to my original purpose
of not announcing my engagement until after my Southern
trip. You've no idea what a big difference it makes in a
girl's good time at a great hotel like this."

This sentence surely gave Stanton a good deal of food for his day's
thoughts, but the mental indigestion that ensued was not altogether
pleasant.