“There's nothing the matter with Harold?"
“Oh, no, Ida.”
“Not with my Charles?”
“No, no.”
Ida gave a sigh of relief, “You quite frightened me, dear,” said she. “You can’t think how solemn you look. What is it, then?”
"I believe that papa intends to ask Mrs. Westmacott to marry him.”
Ida burst out laughing. “What can have put such a notion into your head, Clara?"
“It is only too true, Ida. I suspected it before, and he himself almost told me as much with his own lips to-night. I don’t think that it is a laughing matter.”
“Really, I could not help it. If you had told me that those two dear old ladies opposite, the Misses Williams, were both engaged, you would not have surprised me more. It is really too funny."
“Funny, Ida! Think of any one taking the place of dear mother.”
But her sister was of a more practical and less sentimental nature. “I am sure," said she, “that dear mother would like papa to do whatever would make him most happy. We shall both be away, and why should papa not please himself?”
“But think how unhappy he will be. You know how quiet he is in his ways, and how
