“And if I like the ridiculous little chit,” said Eunice, “I think I shall let Dan marry her at once.  I see no reason why he shouldn’t and I couldn’t stand a long engagement; I should break it off.”

“I guess there are others who will have something to say about that,” retorted the younger sister.  “I’ve always wanted a long engagement in this family, and as there seems to be no chance for it with the ladies, I wish to make the most of Dan’s.  I always like it where the hero gets sick and the heroine nurses him.  I want Dan to get sick, and have Alice come here and take care of him.”

“No; this marriage must take place at once.  What do you say, father?” asked Eunice.

Her father sat, enjoying the talk, at the foot of the bed, with a tendency to doze.  “You might ask Dan,” he said, with a lazy cast of his eye toward his son.

“Dan has nothing to do with it.”

“Dan shall not be consulted.”

The two girls stormed upon their father with their different reasons.

“Now I will tell you Girls, be still!” their mother broke in.  “Listen to me:  I have an idea.”

“Listen to her:  she has an idea!” echoed Eunice, in recitative.

“Will you be quiet?” demanded the mother.

“We will be du-u-mb!”

When they became so, at the verge of their mother’s patience, of which they knew the limits, she went on:  “I think Dan had better get married at once.”

“There, Minnie!”

“But what does Dan say?”

“I will—­make the sacrifice,” said Dan meekly.

“Noble boy!  That’s exactly what Washington said to his mother when she asked him not to go to sea,” said Minnie.

“And then he went into the militia, and made it all right with himself that way,” said Eunice.  “Dan can’t play his filial piety on this family.  Go on, mother.”

“I want him to bring his wife home, and live with us,” continued his mother.

“In the L part!” cried Minnie, clasping her hands in rapture.  “I’ve always said what a perfect little apartment it was by itself.”

“Well, don’t say it again, then,” returned her sister.  “Always is often enough.  Well, in the L part Go on, mother!  Don’t ask where you were, when it’s so exciting.”

“I don’t care whether it’s in the L part or not.  There’s plenty of room in the great barn of a place everywhere.”

“But what about his taking care of the business in Boston?” suggested Eunice, looking at her father.

“There’s no hurry about that.”

“And about the excursion to aesthetic centres abroad?” Minnie added.

“That could be managed,” said her father, with the same ironical smile.

The mother and the girls went on wildly planning Dan’s future for him.  It was all in a strain of extravagant burlesque.  But he could not take his part in it with his usual zest.  He laughed and joked too, but at the bottom of his heart was an uneasy remembrance of the different future he had talked over with Mrs. Pasmer so confidently.  But he said to himself buoyantly at last that it would come out all right.  His mother would give in, or else Alice could reconcile her mother to whatever seemed really best.