"Why not suggest her giving the part to a more competent person? I am sure she would fall in with your wish at once," says Addie, a little hurt at the young man's plain and truthful speaking. He does not answer, does not even seem to hear; then, suddenly, after an uncomfortable pause, he bursts out in doleful appeal—
"Mrs. Armstrong, tell me—do you think I have a ghost of a chance?"
"A ghost of a chance of what?"
"Of winning your sister, of getting her to like me?"
Mr. Everard is a young gentleman of limited reserve, and from the first has made no effort to disguise his devotion to Pauline, yet this point-blank attack takes Addie somewhat aback.
"I—I really don't know, Mr. Everard," she stammers. "I can not tell. Why not ask her yourself?"
"Ask her myself! Why, I have asked her myself at least fourteen times in the last month."
"Fourteen times, by Jove!" exclaims Armstrong—"fourteen times! I did not know till now that Jacob was of British breed."
"And what does she say?" asks Addie, eagerly.
"Oh, she says the same thing always—she's over-young to marry yet! She says that she won't be able to make up her mind for ever so long, that she has not the faintest idea whether she likes me or dislikes me, that it would be of no use trying to find out until she is older, and all that sort of thing. You see, Mrs. Armstrong, she doesn't encourage, and yet she doesn't discourage, and—and—there I am!"