problems awaiting him there.  He had in a measure decided that when he married it should be to a girl whom he had played with in childhood and whom he knew a good deal about, and not to a chance acquaintance of the world at large.  So, beneath all his diversified gallantries he had maintained a quiet little policy of observation, until his thoughts had gradually gathered around two of his young associates who, unconsciously to themselves, as we have said, put in stronger and stronger claims every time he saw them.  They asserted these claims in the only way in which he would have recognized them—­by being more charming, agreeable, and, as he fancied, by being better than the others.  He had not made them aware, even by manner, of the distinction accorded to them; and as yet he was merely a friend.

But the time had come, he believed, for definite action.  While he weighed and considered, some prompter fellows might take the case out of his hands entirely; therefore he welcomed this vacation and the opportunities it afforded.

The festivities began with what is termed in the country a “large party”; and Carrie Mitchell and Lottie Waldo were both there, resplendent in new gowns made for the occasion.  Marstern thought them both charming.  They danced equally well and talked nonsense with much the same ease and vivacity.  He could not decide which was the prettier, nor did the eyes and attentions of others afford him any aid.  They were general favorites, as well as himself, although it was evident that to some they might become more, should they give encouragement.  But they were apparently in the heyday of their girlhood, and thus far had preferred miscellaneous admiration to individual devotion.  By the time the evening was over Marstern felt that if life consisted of large parties he might as well settle the question by the toss of a copper.

It must not be supposed that he was such a conceited prig as to imagine that such a fortuitous proceeding, or his best efforts afterward, could settle the question as it related to the girls.  It would only decide his own procedure.  He was like an old marauding baron, in honest doubt from which town he can carry off the richest booty—­that is, in case he can capture any one of them.  His overtures for capitulation might be met with the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” and he be sent limping off the field.  Nevertheless, no man regrets that he must take the initiative, and he would be less than a man who would fear to do so.  When it came to this point in the affair, Marstern shrugged his shoulders and thought, “I must take my chances like the rest.”  But he wished to be sure that he had attained this point, and not lay siege to one girl only to wish afterward it had been the other.

His course that evening proved that he not only had a legal cast of mind but also a judicial one.  He invited both Miss Mitchell and Miss Waldo to take a sleigh-ride with him the following evening, fancying that when sandwiched between them in the cutter he could impartially note his impressions.  His unsuspecting clients laughingly accepted, utterly unaware of the momentous character of the trial scene before them.