"Oh, how did you get here, Evelyn? Do you live near here? I have been so glad to see you I forgot to ask."
"Mr. Brown brought me over," said Evelyn, unblushingly. "He came over early this morning to tell me you were here. Wasn't it nice of him?"
"He's a dandy fellow, this young Brown," said the old man, and then stopped abruptly.
Evelyn's eyes were sparkling with suppressed laughter.
"But where is Fred?" her father asked, with an effort, and Evelyn watched him girding himself for a painful duty.
"I'll call him," she said, sweetly.
The old man's grey eyes grew dark with excitement and surprise as his friend Brown came into the room and stood beside Evelyn and quite brazenly put his left arm around her waist. His face was a study in emotions as his quick brain grasped the situation. With a prolonged whistle he dropped back on the pillow, and pulling the counterpane over his face he shook with laughter.
"The joke is all on me," he cried. "I have been three or four different kinds of a fool."
Then he emerged from the bed-clothes and, sitting up, grasped Fred's outstretched hand.
"There's one thing, though, I am very proud of, Fred," he said; "I may not be a good judge of humanity myself, but I am glad to know that my girl had all her wits about her when she went to pick out a man for herself!"