other people. She may be pretty. Well, she
is pretty. I don't deny that. And oh dear
me, though I am not learned, and have too much
to do to study history and astronomy, and all
that, yet I know it as a fact, that all learned
clever men choose silly pretty wives. Some say
it is because they do not like rivals, but my
belief is, that all their senses being occupied by
the past and the future, and their wits bent on
discovering what people did formerly, which
does not seem half so pleasant as what we do
now, they have no judgment left for every-day
matters. Their thoughts always occupied with
dry out-of-the-way obscurities, they are instantly
smitten with a pretty face. They think they
have made a discovery, when all the while people
with half their brains have found out that "handsome
is as handsome does," and don't see any
beauty in the face of a goose.

A goose! She is not a goose. She is a clever,
artful, scheming, designing woman—person I
mean.

Erasmus never concocted a mixture of bottles
more carefully than she is planning and plotting
a mixture of devices how to ensnare him.

I will ask, as a foil, the lovely Ellen Wyatt.
No; she is engaged. If Pet's sister was only
here, now. But she is too young. " Come,
Patty, Patty," said I to myself, "how you are
wasting time. Write your invitations, and be
done with it."

CHAPTER II.

WELL, I wrote them, and I kept " that person's"
to the last. And while I was writing it,
somehow my pen felt as if it was angry too, and
sputtered.

Now I hope everybody is aware that I am
nervously neat and tidy, so they may think what
I thought, when I looked at my sputtered
note.

"No," said I. " Patty, I would not write it
again if I was you. It is my opinion that, write
that note as often as you like, it will be sputtered.
She does not consider your feelings, and
why are you to consider hers?"

It was true; she never considered my feelings.
She made eyes at Erasmus under my very
nose.

Now is it not odd how circumstances are more
obstinate than oneself. I was determined not
to write a second note, and yet think of my
state when Robert said,

"Patty, I suppose you did not forget to
invite Miss Ross when you wrote your invitation
to the wid—to Mrs. Arun—-?"

"Robert, I utterly forgot her."

"Then you must write again," said he.

I am not naturally obstinate, but as for
writing that note again (though I might have
guessed that sputtering was to warn me I was
forgetting something), I should like to see myself
doing it.

"Robert, I think it will look more civil if I
put on my best bonnet and cloak, and went and
asked her to come in a friendly way. I like
Miss Ross rather, and I pity her a great deal
for living with—-"

There I stopped. I did not wish Robert to
think I was a mean little woman, or anything of
that sort, and so I said nothing either of the
sputtered note.

I found Miss Ross at home alone. She was
mending some lace for Mrs. Arundel. That
person was out, taking a stroll, she said. Stroll
indeed! I knew what it was; she was doing
anything but strolling. She was running after
Erasmus.

However, I forgot her for a little. I was so
surprised to find Miss Ross such an agreeable
nice girl. I was a little prejudiced against her
before, because of that person.

"Robert," said I, when I got home, " she is
such a dear, and has always lived in Scotland.
Her mother was a Scotch heiress, and married
a clergyman, and she is dead, and they all live
with their father in the most primitive way.
She has the fairest skin, and is quite pretty
when she smiles—with such yards and yards of
hair; and mind, Robert, you are to be very
kind and nice to her."

"Of course I will, when I know of whom you
are rhapsodising."

He knew all the time, but that is a way Robert
has; he tries often to see if I will be out
of patience with him. Dear me, as if I could.

We had no refusals, excepting that Mrs.
Arundel was so audacious as to write and say
she hoped we would excuse her cousin, as she
felt too shy to come to so large a party.

"Good gracious, Robert," I said, " where
will that woman go to? The girl's eyes quite
sparkled with pleasure when I asked her, and
she said she had the greatest desire to mix in
English society. What are we to do?"

"Send Erasmus to request her company as a
favour."

Oh, goodness gracious! Was I reduced to
this? But Erasmus would go, and I had the
horrid feeling all the time that he was glad of
any excuse to go to Eglantine Cottage. He
came back quite a sort of new Erasmus, a mixture
of Robert in his manner, and a kind of
foolish friskiness.

"She is, as you say, Patty, a well-developed
large noble type of the genus woman." (I had
said nothing of the kind.) " She partakes more
of the Teutonic order than is usually seen in the
Celtic race. She has the dreamy reflective
German eye; her organisation has all the
characteristics of the ruminating or quiescent
species. She would make an admirable mother."

"My dear brother!"

I sometimes called Erasmus brother, that he
might remember I was his sister. Never having
had a sister until Robert married, he might
otherwise have forgotten I stood in relation to
him.

"Yes, Patty, I agree with you; she would
make an admirable mother; but how goes on the
tea? Mrs. Arundel asked me who was to be
here, and I said everybody. Also, I told her
the party was given in her honour."