a boy’s hunger to its abundance.  The dining-room, full of shining light, and treated from the low-down grate, was a pleasant place.  But now his spirits failed to rise with the physical cheer; he was almost bashfully silent; he sat cowed in the presence of his sisters, and careworn in the place where he used to be so gay and bold.  They were waiting to have him begin about himself, as he always did when he had been away, and were ready to sympathise with his egotism, whatever new turn it took.  He mystified them by asking about them and their affairs, and by dealing in futile generalities, instead of launching out with any business that he happened at the time to be full of.  But he did not attend to their answers to his questions; he was absent-minded, and only knew that his face was flushed, and that he was obviously ill at ease.

His younger sister turned from him impatiently at last.  “Father, what is the matter with Dan?”

Her bold recognition of their common constraint broke it down.  Dan looked at his father with helpless consent, and his father said quietly, “He tells me he’s engaged.”

“What nonsense!” said his sister Eunice.

“Why, Dan!” cried Minnie; and he felt a reproach in her words which the words did not express.  A silence followed, in which the father along went on with his supper.  The girls sat staring at Dan with incredulous eyes.  He became suddenly angry.

“I don’t know what’s so very extraordinary about it, or why there should be such a pother,” he began; and he knew that he was insolently ignoring abundant reasons for pother, if there had been any pother.  “Yes, I’m engaged.”

He expected now that they would believe him, and ask whom he was engaged to; but apparently they were still unable to realise it.  He was obliged to go on.  “I’m engaged to Miss Pasmer.”

“To Miss Pasmer!” repeated Eunice.

“But I thought—­” Minnie began, and then stopped.

Dan commanded his temper by a strong effort, and condescended to explain.  “There was a misunderstanding, but it’s all right now; I only met her yesterday, and—­it’s all right.”  He had to keep on ignoring what had passed between him and his sisters during the month he spent at home after his return from Campobello.  He did not wish to do so; he would have been glad to laugh over that epoch of ill-concealed heart-break with them; but the way they had taken the fact of his engagement made it impossible.  He was forced to keep them at a distance; they forced him.  “I’m glad,” he added bitterly, “that the news seems to be so agreeable to my family.  Thank you for your cordial congratulations.”  He swallowed a large cup of tea, and kept looking down.

“How silly!” said Eunice, who was much the oldest of the three.  “Did you expect us to fall upon your neck before we could believe it wasn’t a hoax of father’s?”

“A hoax!” Dan burst out.

“I suppose,” said Minnie, with mock meekness, “that if we’re to be devoured, it’s no use saying we didn’t roil the brook.  I’m sure I congratulate you, Dan, with all my heart,” she added, with a trembling voice.