ears."

"Oh, she had at least two hundred thousand dollars by the will. It has
cost her nothing to live all these years as my guardian and trustee. We
just had to do something with my income, you know."

"I don't see why you should let this fortune stand in the way, Grace,"
growled he. "Haven't I enough of my own to take its place?" Hugh
Ridgeway had a million in his own right and he could well afford to be
unreasonable. "The will says you are not to have your father's money
until you are twenty-three years old. He evidently thought that was a
discreet age. You are not to marry before you have reached that age.
I've been waiting for two years, Grace, and there still remains
two months--"

"One month and twenty-eight days, Hugh," she corrected.

"And in the meantime we have to stay here and face all this ante-nuptial
wretchedness. It's sickening, Grace. We hate it, both of us. Don't we? I
knew you'd nod your head. That's why I can't help loving you. You've got
so much real good hard sense about things. If your confounded Aunt
Lizzie--Elizabeth, I should say--would let us get married as we
want--Hang it all, Grace, it's our affair anyhow, isn't it? Why should
we permit her to dictate? It's not her wedding. She's been married
twice; why can't she let well enough alone?"

"She loves me, Hugh, after all," gently.

"Well, so do I. I'm willing--not perfectly willing, of course--but
reasonably so, that we should wait until the twenty-third of May, but I
don't see why we should have the whole town waiting with us. Why don't
you assert yourself, dear, before it is too late? Once she pulls off
this announcement party, it's all off with peace of mind and contentment
so far as we are concerned. Of course, she'll be enjoying it, but what
of us? Are you afraid of her?"

"Don't bully me, Hugh," she pleaded. He was contrite at once and
properly so. "She has lived for this time in her life. She never has
been crossed. I can't--honestly I can't go to her now and--quarrel.
That's what it would mean--a quarrel. She would never give in."

"Well, then, all hope is lost," he lamented. For some minutes Miss
Vernon gave no response, sitting upon the arm of the chair, a perplexed
pucker on her brow and a thoughtful swing to her slippered foot.

These young people had known each other since earliest childhood. They
had played together with the same neighborly toys and they had grown up
together with the same neighborly ideals. Both had w