! That's the great point.«
    »It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he
wants her to marry Mr. Brand.«
    »I know nothing about it!« cried the Baroness. »Please to put on a log.«
Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flames.
Presently his sister added, »And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?«
    »By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr.
Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us.«
    »But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him.«
    »I want to please every one!« exclaimed Felix, joyously. »I have a good
conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make
love to Gertrude.«
    »So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!«
    Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. »You say you are not afraid
of her,« he said. »But perhaps you ought to be - a little. She's a very clever
person.«
    »I begin to see it!« cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder,
leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered
accent, Madame Münster put another question. »You expect, at any rate, to
marry?«
    »I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't.«
    »A disappointment or two will do you good!« the Baroness declared. »And,
afterwards, do you mean to turn American?«
    »It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to
Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world.«
    »Ah, like me, when I came here!« said the Baroness, with a little laugh.
    »No, not like you,« Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain
gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also
got up. »Gertrude is not at all like you,« he went on; »but in her own way she
is almost as clever.« He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable
feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual
vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The
shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to
