Miss Mitchell avoided her father's eyes. She shook out her hair again,
and ran her white, ringed fingers through its brown depths. "Haven't I
promised you not to think of Andy in--in any serious way?" she
faltered. "His mother and sister are nice, and I don't want to offend
them. You needn't keep bringing his name up." Her fine lips were
twitching. "I'd not be a natural woman if I didn't appreciate his--his
honest admiration."

"Honest nothing!" Mitchell blurted out. "He thinks you are going to
have money, and he believes you'll be silly enough to be influenced by
his puppy love to make a fool of yourself. Besides, he's in the way.
He took you to a dance not long ago when Mostyn wanted to go with you.
Dick told me at the bank that he was going to invite you, and then
that young blockhead called for you."

Miss Mitchell had the air of one subduing interest. She forced a faint
smile into the general gravity of her face. "Andy had asked me a month
before," she said, "or, rather, his mother asked me for him the day
the cards were sent out."

"I knew _she_ had a hand in it," Mitchell retorted, in a tone of
conviction. "That old woman is the most cold-blooded matchmaker in the
State, and she's playing with you like a cat with a mouse. They want
my money, I tell you--that's what they are after. I know how the old
thing talks to you--she's always telling you her darling boy is dying
of grief, and all that foolishness."

Irene avoided her father's eyes. She wound a thick wisp of her hair
around her head and began to fasten it with a hairpin. He heard her