assistance of his daughter. “Ha, Hope, good evening.”
“Where have you been since?” asked Lucy, throwing the Professor's coat and wraps on to a chair.
“With Mrs. Jasher,” said Braddock, warming his plump hands at the fire. “So you must blame me that she is not here to preside at dinner as the chaperon of you young people.”
Lucy and her lover glanced at one another in surprise. This light and airy tone was a new one for the Professor to take. Instead of being angry, he seemed to be unusually gay, and looked at them in quite a jocular manner for a dry-as-dust scientist.
“We waited dinner for her, father,” ventured Lucy timidly.
“Then I am ready to eat it,” announced Braddock. “I am extremely hungry, my dear. I can't live on love, you know.”
“Live on love?” Lucy stared, and Archie laughed quietly.
“Oh yes, you may smile and look astonished;” went on the Professor good-humoredly, “but science does not destroy the primeval instincts entirely. Lucy, my dear,” he took her hand and patted it, “while in London and in lodgings, it was borne in upon me forcibly how lonely I was and how lonely I would be when you married our young friend yonder. I had intended to come down to-morrow, but to-night, such was my feeling of loneliness that I considered favorably your idea that I should find a second helpmate in Mrs. Jasher. I have always had a profound admiration for that lady, and so—on the spur of the moment, as I may say—I decided to come down this evening and propose.”
“Oh,” Lucy clapped her hands, very well satisfied with the unexpected news, “and have you?”