Aunt Jerry, there was a
romantic lure in the thing, somehow."

Jerry Swaim's face was grave as she gazed with wide, unseeing eyes at
the vista of fresh June meadows from which the odor of red clover,
pulsing in on the cool west breeze of the late afternoon, mingled with
the odor of white honeysuckle that twined among the climbing rose-vines
above her.

"Humph! What else?" Aunt Jerry sniffed a disapproval of unpleasant
landscapes in general and alluring romances in particular. Love of
romance was not in her mental make-up, any more than love of art.

"I went over to Uncle Cornie's bank to tell him to take care of my
shopping-bills. He wasn't in just then and I didn't wait for him. By
the way"--Jerry Swaim was not dreamy now--"since all the legal
litigations and things are over, oughtn't I begin to manage my own
affairs and live on my own income?"

Sitting there in the shelter of blossoming vines, the girl seemed far
too dainty a creature, too lacking in experience, initiative, or
ability, to manage anything more trying than a big allowance of
pin-money. And yet, something in her small, firm hands, something in the
lines of her well-formed chin, put the doubt into any forecast of what
Geraldine Swaim might do when she chose to act.

Aunt Jerry wrapped the lacy tatting stuff she had been making around the
pearl shuttle and, putting both away in the Japanese work-basket,
carefully snapped down the lid.

"When Jerusha Darby quits work to talk it's time for me to put on my
skid-chains," Jerry said to herself as she watched the procedure.

"Jerry, do you know why I called you your mother's own child just now?"
Mrs. Darby asked, gravely.

"From habit, maybe, you have said it so often." Jerry's smile took away
any suggestion of pertness. "I know I am like her in some ways."

"Yes, but not altogether," the older woman continued. "Lesa Swaim was a
strange combination. She was made to spend money, with no idea of how to
get money. And she brought you up the same way. And now you are grown,
boarding-school finished, and of age, you can't alter your bringing up
any more than you can change your big eyes that are just like Lesa's,
nor your chin that you inherited from Brother Jim. I might as well try
to give you little black eyes and a receding chin as to try to reshape
your ways now. You are as the Lord made you, and Providence molded you,
and your mother spoiled you."

"Well, I don't want to be anything different. I'm ha