"Well, I'm not prepared to say, yet. I am umpire. I have not made up my mind which I shall marry—the lovely Julia, or the brilliant niece; but I think I shall in the long run."
"God help you if you do!" said Cuthbert, dramatically. "I don't know Julia, the beautiful; but I'd hate to see you married to a cat with uncut claws, Ned, much as I think you need dressing down from time to time."
"Mrs. Wagner," said Mr. Bailey, turning to her, gravely, "I'm not paying the least attention to him, and I am eager to hear how the grandfather got out of it."
"The grandfather!" exclaimed Nora, "why I had no idea of telling his story. It was the two girls I was interested in—or at least, in one of them; but that is just like a man. He—"
She allowed her feather fan to fall in her lap and looked up helplessly. "But come to think of the other side, his story would be worth telling, wouldn't it? It must have been a rather trying situation for him, too."
She took the fan up again, and waved it before her, thoughtfully. "I wonder why I never thought of that before. I have always rather blamed him for developing his granddaughter's one sad defect. I thought he should have guarded her against it. And—I do wonder if it is because I am a woman that I never before thought how very difficult it must have been for him?"
"No doubt, no doubt," said her husband, dryly. "But now that we have shed a few tears over our mental shortcomings and lack of breadth of sympathy in overlooking the sad predicament of the doughty General, proceed. The umpire sleepeth apace, and I've got to have my shy at the charming Midge before we've done with her," and he shut his paper-knife with a wicked little click.
"You can see how it would be," Nora began again, quite gravely, and the gentlemen both smiled. "You can see how it would be. The granddaughter was made to feel that she was in the way—was a burden. Her mother would urge her to become indispensable to the old General. To read to him, talk brightly to him, sing and play for him, watch his moods and meet them cleverly. It was all done as a race for his affections. Julia raced with her, setting her beauty and the other great fact that she was the child of his old age over against the entertaining qualities of her rival."
Mr. Bailey drew his handkerchief across his brow and looked helplessly perplexed, while Cuthbert responded with a dreary shake of the head.
"It is a clear case of 'The Lady or the Tiger,' yet, so far as I can see," said he. "Who got there, Bailey?"