“I want to ask you a question:  are you in love with Alice Lancaster?”

Keith turned slowly and looked at her, looked at her so long that she began to blush.

“Don’t you think, if I am, I had better inform her first?” he said quietly.

Mrs. Nailor was staggered; but she was in for it, and she had to fight her way through.  “I was scared to death, my dear,” she said when she repeated this part of the conversation, “for I never know just how he is going to take anything; but he was so quiet, I went on.”

“Well, yes, I think you had,” she said; “Alice can take care of herself; but I tell you that you have no right to be carrying on with that sweet, innocent young girl here.  You know what people say of you?”

“No; I do not,” said Keith.  “I was not aware that I was of sufficient importance here for people to say anything, except perhaps a few persons who know me.”

“They say you have come here to see Miss Huntington?”

“Do they?” asked Keith, so carelessly that Mrs. Nailor was just thinking that she must be mistaken, when he added:  “Well, will you ask people if they ever heard what Andrew Jackson said to Mr. Buchanan once when he told him it was time to go and dress to receive Lady Wellesley?”

“What did he say?” asked Mrs. Nailor.

“He said he knew a man in Tennessee who had made a fortune by attending to his own business.”

Having failed with Keith, Mrs. Nailor, the next afternoon, called on Miss Huntington.  Lois was in, and her aunt was not well; so Mrs. Nailor had a fair field for her research.  She decided to test the young girl, and she selected the only mode which could have been successful with herself.  She proposed a surprise.  She spoke of Keith and noticed the increased interest with which the girl listened.  This was promising.

“By the way,” she said, “you know the report is that Mr. Keith has at last really surrendered?”

“Has he?  I am so glad.  If ever a man deserved happiness it is he.  Who is it?”

The entire absence of self-consciousness in Lois’s expression and voice surprised Mrs. Nailor.

“Mrs. Lancaster,” she said, watching for the effect of her answer.  “Of course, you know he has always been in love with her?”

The girl’s expression of unfeigned admiration of Mrs. Lancaster gave Mrs. Nailor another surprise.  She decided that she had been mistaken in suspecting her of caring for Keith.

“He has evidently not proposed yet.  If she were a little older I should be certain of it,” she said to herself as she drove away; “but these girls are so secretive one can never tell about them.  Even I could not look as innocent as that to save my life if I were interested.”