"Do you mean that he's too sympathetic--that he isn't sincere?" asked the
first--a single lady of forty-nine, a Miss Cotton, who had a little knot
of conscience between her pretty eyebrows, tied there by the unremitting
effort of half a century to do and say exactly the truth, and to find it
out.

Mrs. Brinkley, whom she addressed, was of that obesity which seems often
to incline people to sarcasm. "No, I don't think he's insincere. I think
he always means what he says and does--Well, do you think a little more
concentration of good-will would hurt him for Miss Pasmer's purpose--if
she has it?"

"Yes, I see," said Miss Cotton. She waited, with her kind eyes fixed
wistfully upon Alice, for the young people to approach and get by. "I
wonder what the men think of him?"

"You might ask Miss Anderson," said Mrs. Brinkley.

"Oh, do you think they tell her?"

"Not that exactly," said Mrs. Brinkley, shaking with good-humoured
pleasure in her joke.

"Her voice--oh yes. She and Alice are great friends, of course."

"I should think," said Mrs. Stamwell, the second speaker, "that Mr.
Mavering would be jealous sometimes--till he looked twice."

"Yes," said Miss Cotton, obliged to admit the force of the remark, but
feeling that Mr. Mavering had been carried out of the field of her vision