ppy as I am."

"You won't need to be, unless you choose. But being twenty-one doesn't
make you too old to listen to me--and your uncle Cornie."

In all her life Jerry had never before heard her uncle's name brought in
as co-partner of Jerusha Darby's in any opinion, authority, or advice.
It was an unfortunate slip of the tongue for Uncle Cornie's wife, one of
those simple phrases that, dropped at the right spot, take root and grow
and bear big fruit, whether of sweet or bitter taste.

"Your mother was a dreamer, a lover of romance, and all sorts of
adventures, although she never had a chance to get into any of them.
That's why you went skidding on that sideling bluff road to-day; that
and the fact that she brought you up to have your own way about
everything. But, as I say, we can't change that now, and there's no need
to if we could. Lesa was a pretty woman, but you look like the Swaims,
except right across here."

Aunt Jerry drew her bony finger across the girl's brows, unwilling to
concede any of the family likeness that could possibly be retained. She
could not see the gleam of mischief lurking under the downcast eyelashes
of Lesa Swaim's own child.

"Your father was a good business man, level-headed, shrewd, and
honest"--Mrs. Darby spoke rapidly now--"but things happened in the last
years of his life. Your mother took pneumonia and died, and you went
away to boarding-school. Jim's business was considerably involved. I
needn't bother to tell you about that. It doesn't matter now, anyhow.
And then one night he didn't come home, and the next morning your uncle
found him sitting in his office, just as he had left him the evening
before. He had been dead several hours. Heart failure was what the
doctor said, but I reckon everybody goes of heart failure sooner or
later."

A bright, hard glow came into Jerry Swaim's eyes and the red lips were
grimly pressed together. In the two years since the loss of her parents
the girl had never tried to pray. As time went on the light spirit of
youth had come back, but something went out of her life on the day of
her father's death, leaving a loss against which she stubbornly
rebelled.

"To be plain, Jerry," Mrs. Darby hurried on, "you have your inheritance
all cleared up at last, after two whole years of legal trouble."

"Oh, it hasn't really bothered me," Jerry declared, with seeming
flippancy. "Just signing my name where somebody pointed to a blank line,
and holding up my