chaperon for you, or half a dozen, if you want them, and pull out for
New York. What do you say? I don't know the first principles of the
business, anyway."

"Oh, yes, you do, dad!" protested Susie. "You're a perfectly ideal
chaperon."

"I am? The ideal chaperon, then, must be one who never does any
chaperoning!"

"That's it, exactly!" cried Nell, clapping her hands delightedly. "How
quickly you see things, dad!"

"So that's it!" and he stood for a moment looking darkly at his
offspring. "Well, you girls are old enough to take care of yourselves.
If you can't, it's high time you were learning how!"

"Oh, we're perfectly able to take care of ourselves," Sue assured him.
"You mustn't worry about us for a moment, dad."

"I'm not likely to. But, in that case, why do you want me along at all?"

"Why, don't you see, dad, it's you who give us the odour of
respectability. By ourselves, we should be social outcasts, impossible,
not to be spoken to--except by men. It isn't convenable."

"Oh, I see," said Rushford. "The first great principle of European
society seems to be, 'Think the worst of every one.'"

"Not precisely, dad; but no unmarried woman may venture outside the