Bobby smiled broadly under the brim of her hat.

“Then you advise me to take Hal?”

“I advise you to let me send this fellow Hascombe about his business.  I’ll make short work of him.”

Bobby slipped her arm through his, and looked up saucily.

“You needn’t bother, dear,” she said.  “Now that it’s all settled about Hal, I don’t mind telling you that I refused Mr. Hascombe last night.”

* * * * *

On the gangway below, the passengers were slowly filing ashore.  Among the last to debark was the Honorable Percival Hascombe, followed by a fur coat, a gun-case, two pigskin bags, a hat-box, and a valet.  On his face was an expression of unutterable ennui.  As he reached the wharf he turned and casually surveyed the steamer.  On the bridge he discerned a small alert figure, clad in white, her dark head framed by the broad brim of a Panama hat.  She waved her hand and smiled, and he waved back, but he did not smile.

“Judson,” said the Honorable Percival as they handed their bags to Sister Cordelia’s footman, “quite unnecessary to mention any—­er—­any incidents of the voyage.  You understand?”

“Quite so, sir,” said Judson.

FINIS

* * * * *

“When Alice Hegan Rice writes a little book, lovers of whimsical fiction rejoice with open rejoicing.”—­Chicago Tribune.

“Mrs. Rice has been paid the compliment of being compared with Dickens.  Those who appreciate her real merits will see that she is more natural, more lifelike, and more unaffectedly humorous than the author of ‘Pickwick Papers.’”—­Rochester Post-Express.

“There is a delicious humor in everything she writes, and it has the virtue of non-boisterousness and sobriety in tone.  There is no straining for wit:  everything has the merit of spontaneity and naturalness.”—­Philadelphia Record.

“She is one of the real humorists, for at the bottom of her humor there is a deep well of human kindness.”—­The Metropolitan.

See next page for complete list of Mrs. Rice’s books

* * * * *

Books by Alice Hegan Rice

MRS. WIGGS OF THE CABBAGE PATCH

“A sure cure for the blues, and a gay challenge to pessimists in general.”—­Chicago Herald.

Price $1.00

LOVEY MARY

“For fun and pathos, for crisp wit and serene philosophy, and for the charm that holds the reader spellbound, ‘Lovey Mary’ is as notable as ‘Mrs. Wiggs.’”—­The Christian Intelligencer.

Price $1.00

MR. OPP

“He is a figure that might hang without insidious comparison in George Eliot’s own immortal character portrait gallery.”—­New York Sun. Price $1.00