"Now, Mr. Ellsworth, you are just the man I wanted. Three of
these gentlemen are against me; I have only one on my side, and I
want you to help me to fight the battle."

"Must I enlist, Miss Taylor, before I know whether the cause is
good or bad?"

"Oh, certainly, or else you are not worth a cent. But I'll tell
you how the matter stands: you know Helen de Vaux and you were at
the Springs, last summer, when she and Mr. Van Alstyne were
there. Well, I say she was dead in love with him, though she did
refuse him."

"Was she?" replied Mr. Ellsworth.

"Why, I know she was; it was as plain as a pike-staff to
everybody who saw them together. And here, these good folks
provoke me so; they say if she refused him she did not care for
him; and here is my ridiculous brother-in-law, Mr. St. Leger,
says I don't know anything about it; and my sister Adeline always
thinks just as her husband does."

"That's quite right, my dear," said the rusty Mr. Hopkins, taking
a pinch of snuff. "I hope you will follow her example one of
these days."

"What are the precise symptoms of a young lady's being dead in
love?" asked the quiet, business-looking Theodore St. Leger.