ire, astonished no one in the
audience, though it caused Merton Gill to wonder if he could fell a
crook with one blow. He must practice up some blows.

Throckmorton left the palatial country home wearied by the continuous
adulation. The last to speed him was the Gordon daughter, who reminded
him of their wager; within ten days he would acknowledge her to be an
actress fit to play as his leading woman.

Throckmorton drove rapidly to a simple farm where he was not known and
would be no longer surfeited with attentions. He dressed plainly in
shirts that opened wide at the neck and assisted in the farm labours,
such as pitching hay and leading horses into the barn. It was the simple
existence that he had been craving--away from it all! No one suspected
him to be Hubert Throckmorton, least of all the simple country maiden,
daughter of the farmer, in her neat print dress and heavy braid of
golden hair that hung from beneath her sunbonnet. She knew him to be
only a man among men, a simple farm labourer, and Hubert Throckmorton,
wearied by the adulation of his feminine public, was instantly charmed
by her coy acceptance of his attentions.

That this charm should ripen to love was to be expected. Here was a
child, simple, innocent, of a wild-rose beauty in her print dress and
sunbonnet, who would love him for himself alone. Beside a blossoming
orange tree on the simple Long Island farm he declared his love, warning
the child that he had nothing to offer her but two strong arms and a
heart full of devotion.

The little girl shyly betrayed that she returned his love but told him
that he must first obtain the permission of her grandmother without
which she would never consent to wed him. She hastened into the old
farmhouse to prepare Grandmother for the interview.

Throckmorton presently faced the old lady who sat huddled in an
armchair, her hands crooked over a cane, a ruffled cap above her silvery
hair. He manfully voiced his request for the child's hand in marriage.
The old lady seemed to mumble an assent. The happy lover looked about
for his fiance when, to his stupefaction, the old lady arose briskly
from her chair, threw off cap, silvery wig, gown of black, and stood
revealed as the child herself, smiling roguishly up at him from beneath
the sunbonnet. With a glad cry he would have seized her, when she stayed
him with lifted hand. Once more she astounded him. Swiftly she threw
off sunbonnet, blonde wig, print dress, and