“How do you know he’s young?” Mrs. Atwater retorted crisply.  “All in the world she said about him was that he’s a lawyer.  He may be a widower, for all we know, or divorced, with seven or eight children.”

“Oh, no, Mollie!”

“Why, he might!” she insisted.  “For all we know, he may be a widower for the third or fourth time, or divorced, with any number of children!  If such a person proposed to Julia, you know yourself she’d hate to be disappointing!”

Her husband laughed.  “I don’t think she’d go so far as to actually accept ‘such a person’ and write home to announce her engagement to the family.  I suppose most of her swains here have been in the habit of proposing to her just as frequently as she was unable to prevent them from going that far; and while I don’t think she’s been as discouraging with them as she might have been, she’s never really accepted any of ’em.  She’s never been engaged before.”

“No,” Mrs. Atwater admitted.  “Not to this extent!  She’s never quite announced it to the family before, that is.”

“Yes; I’d hate to have Julia’s job when she comes back!” Julia’s brother admitted ruefully.

“What job?”

“Breaking it to her admirers.”

“Oh, she isn’t going to do that!”

“She’ll have to, now,” he said.  “She’ll either have to write the news to ’em, or else tell ’em, face to face, when she comes home.”

“She won’t do either.”

“Why, how could she get out of it?”

His wife smiled pityingly.  “She hasn’t set a time for coming home, has she?  Don’t you know enough of Julia’s ways to see she’ll never in the world stand up to the music?  She writes that all the family can be told, because she knows the news will leak out, here and there, in confidence, little by little, so by the time she gets home they’ll all have been through their first spasms, and after that she hopes they’ll just send her some forgiving flowers and greet her with manly hand-clasps—­and get ready to usher at the wedding!”

“Well,” said Mr. Atwater, “I’m afraid you’re right.  It does seem rather like Julia to stay away till the first of the worst is over.  I’m really sorry for some of ’em.  I suppose it will get whispered about, and they’ll hear it; and there are some of the poor things that might take it pretty hard.”

“‘Take it pretty hard!’” his wife echoed loudly.  “There’s one of ’em, at least, who’ll just merely lose his reason!”

“Which one?”

“Noble Dill.”

At this, the slender form of Florence underwent a spasmodic seizure in her chair, but as the fit was short and also noiseless, it passed without being noticed.

“Yes,” said Mr. Atwater thoughtfully.  “I suppose he will.”