A Distant Relative

Mr. Potter had just taken Ethel Spriggs into the kitchen to say good- by; in the small front room Mr. Spriggs, with his fingers already fumbling at the linen collar of ceremony, waited impatiently.

"They get longer and longer over their good-bys," he complained.

"It's only natural," said Mrs. Spriggs, looking up from a piece of fine sewing. "Don't you remember--"

"No, I don't," said her husband, doggedly. "I know that your pore father never 'ad to put on a collar for me; and, mind you, I won't wear one after they're married, not if you all went on your bended knees and asked me to."

He composed his face as the door opened, and nodded good-night to the rather over-dressed young man who came through the room with his daughter.

The latter opened the front-door and passing out with Mr. Potter, held it slightly open. A penetrating draught played upon the exasperated Mr. Spriggs. He coughed loudly.

"Your father's got a cold," said Mr. Potter, in a concerned voice.

"No; it's only too much smoking," said the girl. "He's smoking all day long."

The indignant Mr. Spriggs coughed again; but the young people had found a new subject of conversation. It ended some minutes later in a playful scuffle, during which the door acted the part of a ventilating fan.

"It's only for another fortnight," said Mrs. Spriggs, hastily, as her husband rose.

"After they're spliced," said the vindictive Mr. Spriggs, resuming his seat, "I'll go round and I'll play about with their front-door till--"

He broke off abruptly as his daughter, darting into the room, closed the door with a bang that nearly extinguished the lamp, and turned the key. Before her flushed and laughing face Mr. Spriggs held his peace.

"What's the matter?" she asked, eying him. "What are you looking like that for?"

"Too much draught--for your mother," said Mr. Spriggs, feebly. "I'm afraid of her asthma agin."

He fell to work on the collar once more, and, escaping at last from the clutches of that enemy, laid it on the table and unlaced his boots. An attempt to remove his coat was promptly frustrated by his daughter.

"You'll get doing it when you come round to see us," she explained.

Mr. Spriggs sighed, and lighting a short clay pipe--forbidden in the presence of his future son-in-law--fell to watching mother and daughter as they gloated over dress materials and discussed double-widths.

"Anybody who can't be 'appy with her," he said, half an hour later, as his daughter slapped his head by way of bidding him good-night, and retired, "don't deserve to be 'appy."

"I wish it was over," whispered his wife. "She'll break her heart