`` Perhaps Miss Thayer may be booked elsewhere already , '' suggested Major Hill . He had seen more than one of his wife 's card castles fall into heartbreaking ruin . `` Oh , no ; Violet would have told me if that were the case . It 's really quite time for her to think of settling down . She is twenty-five , you know . The men all go crazy over her , but she 's dreadfully hard to please . However , she ca n't help liking Ned . He has n't a single fault . I firmly believe it is foreordained . '' And in this belief Mrs. Hill rested securely , but nevertheless did not fail to concoct several feminine artifices for the helping on of foreordination . It was a working belief with her that it was always well to have the gods in your debt . Violet Thayer came , saw , and conquered . Within thirty-six hours of her arrival at Dufferin Bluff she had every one of the half-dozen eligibles at her feet , not to mention a score or more ineligibles . She would have been surprised indeed had it been otherwise . Miss Thayer knew her power , and was somewhat unduly fond of exercising it . But she was a very nice girl into the bargain , and so thought one and all of the young men who frequented Mrs. Hill 's drawing-room and counted it richly worth while merely to look at Miss Thayer after having seen nothing for weeks except flabby half-breed girls and blue-haired squaws . Madison was foremost in the field , of course . Madison was really a nice fellow , and quite deserved all Mrs. Hill 's encomiums . He was good-looking and well groomed -- could sing and dance divinely and play the violin to perfection . The other M.P.s were all jealous of him , and more so than ever when Violet Thayer came .
They did not consider XXXXX any one of them had the ghost of a chance if Madison entered the lists against them .
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