“Why,” murmured Louise, “then that will be the making of him, I have no doubt.  It is the lack I have seen in his character from the beginning.  Responsibility will make a man of him.”

“Ha!” snarled I. Tapp.  “How about you?  Will you marry a poor man—­a chap like my son who, if he ever makes twenty dollars a week, will be doing mighty well?”

“Oh!  This is so—­so sudden, Mr. Tapp!” murmured Louise, dimpling.  “You are not seriously asking me to marry your son, are you?”

“Asking you to?” exploded the excitable Taffy King, with a wild gesture.  “I forbid it!  Forbid it! do you hear?” and he rushed away from the scene of the festivities and did not appear again during the afternoon.

Mrs. Tapp, all of a flutter, appeared at Louise’s elbow.

“Oh, dear, Miss Grayling!  What did he say?  He is so excitable.”  She almost wept.  “I hope he has said nothing to offend you?”

Louise looked at her with a rather pitying smile.

“Don’t be worried, Mrs. Tapp,” she assured her.  “Really, I think your husband is awfully amusing.”

Naturally disapproval was plainly enthroned upon Aunt Euphemia’s countenance when she saw her niece aiding in the entertainment of the guests at the Tapp lawn fete.  The Lady from Poughkeepsie had come with the Perritons because, as she admitted, the candy manufacturer’s family must be placated to a degree.

“But you go too far, Louise.  Even good nature cannot excuse this.  I am only thankful that young man is not at home.  Surely you cannot be really interested in Lawford Tapp?”

“Do spare my blushes,” begged Louise, her palms upon her cheeks but her eyes dancing.  “Really, I haven’t seen Lawford for days.”

“Really, Louise?”

“Surely I would not deceive you, auntie,” she said.  “He may have lost all his interest in me, too.  He went away without bidding me good-bye.”

“Well, I am glad of that!” sighed Aunt Euphemia.   “I feared it was
different.   Indeed, I heard something said------Oh, well, people will
gossip so!   Never mind.   But these Tapps are so pushing.”

“I think Mrs. Tapp is a very pleasant woman; and the girls are quite nice,” Louise said demurely.

“You need not have displayed your liking for them in quite this way,” objected Aunt Euphemia.  “You could easily have excused yourself—­the uncertainty about your poor father would have been reason enough.  I don’t know—­I am not sure, indeed, but that we should go into mourning.  Of course, it would spoil the summer——­”

“Oh!  Aunt Euphemia!”

“Yes.  Well, I only mentioned it.  For my own part I look extremely well in crepe.”

Louise was shocked by this speech; yet she knew that its apparent heartlessness did not really denote the state of her aunt’s mind.  It was merely bred of the lady’s shallowness, and of her utterly self-centered existence.