“When folk act childishly, they must be treated as children.  I always thought you were mad when you married before, but I shall think you doubly mad now.”

“Because you have preferred to remain single and solitary yourself, is it any reason why you should condemn me to do the same?  You are happy alone; I should be happier with a wife.

“That she may go and disgrace you, as the last one did!” intemperately spoke Miss Carlyle, caring not a rush what she said in her storm of anger.

Mr. Carlyle’s brow flushed, but he controlled his temper.

“No,” he calmly replied.  “I am not afraid of that in the one I have now chosen.”

Miss Corny gathered her knitting together, he had picked up her box.  Her hands trembled, and the lines of her face were working.  It was a blow to her as keen as the other had been.

“Pray who is it that you have chosen?” she jerked forth.  “The whole neighborhood has been after you.”

“Let it be who it will, Cornelia, you will be sure to grumble.  Were I to say that it was a royal princess, or a peasant’s daughter, you would equally see grounds for finding fault.”

“Of course I should.  I know who it is—­that stuck-up Louisa Dobede.”

“No, it is not.  I never had the slightest intention of choosing Louisa Dobede, nor she of choosing me.  I am marrying to please myself, and, for a wife, Louisa Dobede would not please me.”

“As you did before,” sarcastically put in Miss Corny.

“Yes; as I did before.”

“Well, can’t you open your mouth and say who it is?” was the exasperated rejoinder.

“It is Barbara Hare.”

“Who?” shrieked Miss Carlyle.

“You are not deaf, Cornelia.”

“Well, you are an idiot!” she exclaimed, lifting up her hands and eyes.

“Thank you,” he said, but without any signs of irritation.

“And so you are; you are, Archibald.  To suffer that girl, who has been angling after you so long, to catch you at last.”

“She has not angled after me; had she done so, she would probably never have been Mrs. Carlyle.  Whatever passing fancy she may have entertained for me in earlier days, she has shown no symptoms of it of late years; and I am quite certain that she had no more thought or idea that I should choose her for my second wife, than you had I should choose you.  Others have angled after me too palpably, but Barbara has not.”

“She is a conceited minx, as vain as she is high.”

“What else have you to urge against her?”

“I would have married a girl without a slur, if I must have married,” aggravatingly returned Miss Corny.

“Slur?”

“Slur, yes.  Dear me, is it an honor—­the possessing a brother such as Richard?”

Miss Corny sniffed.  “Pigs may fly; but I never saw them try at it.”

“The next consideration, Cornelia, is about your residence.  You will go back, I presume, to your own home.”