head, Clara?"

"It is only too true, Ida. I suspected it before, and he himself almost
told me as much with his own lips to-night. I don't think that it is a
laughing matter."

"Really, I could not help it. If you had told me that those two dear
old ladies opposite, the Misses Williams, were both engaged, you would
not have surprised me more. It is really too funny."

"Funny, Ida! Think of any one taking the place of dear mother."

But her sister was of a more practical and less sentimental nature. "I
am sure," said she, "that dear mother would like papa to do whatever
would make him most happy. We shall both be away, and why should papa
not please himself?"

"But think how unhappy he will be. You know how quiet he is in his
ways, and how even a little thing will upset him. How could he live
with a wife who would make his whole life a series of surprises? Fancy
what a whirlwind she must be in a house. A man at his age cannot change
his ways. I am sure he would be miserable."

Ida's face grew graver, and she pondered over the matter for a few
minutes. "I really think that you are right as usual," said she at
last. "I admire Charlie's aunt very much, you know, and I think that
she is a very useful and good person, but I don't think she would do as
a wife for poor quiet papa."

"But he will certainly ask her, and I really think that she intends to