"I suppose you couldn't guess?"
"I am sure I couldn't," she asserted. Then added laughingly, "unless they've fallen in love with each other—by-the-way," she continued, growing suddenly serious again; "that isn't as altogether an improbable think as it looks—I remember coming to the conclusion that Charlie had fallen in love with her writing, and thinking that it was almost equivalent to falling in love with herself."
"Well, that is just what has happened to them—though I rather think it happened before the creation of your ingenious theory. It appears they had some misunderstanding, or quarrel or something of that nature, before Miss Cameron left London, and they had never met again till he saw her along with you decorating the hall down there."
"And they've made it up!" exclaimed Minnie, clapping her hands in her delight.
"Yes, it is settled—the girl's only nineteen, and in my opinion too young. But her father doesn't seem to think so."
"O, that's what he was here for then," remarked Minnie, "I met him as I was going up to Mabel's."
"Yes," replied her father, smiling. "He seems to have fully made up his mind on one point."
"What point?"
"That there is nothing and nobody worth considering in comparison with his daughter, and in that conviction his wife and he seem to be completely at one."
Minnie laughed.