under
way, was all of "that rich old codger of a Darby and his selfish old
wife"; of "that young dude artist, old Wellington's kid, too lazy to
work"; of "that pretty, frivolous girl who didn't know how to comb her
own hair, Jim Swaim's girl--poor Jim!" "Old Corn Darby was looking
yellow and thin, too. He would dry up and blow away some day if his
money wasn't weighting him down so he couldn't."

At the bend in the walk, the two young people saw Uncle Cornie crossing
the lawn.

"Going to get his discus. He'll have no appetite for dinner unless he
gets in a few dozen slings," the young man declared. "Let's turn in here
at the sign of the roses, Jerry. I'm too lazy to take another step."

"You should have come out with me in the car," Jerry replied as they sat
down in the cool arbor made for youth and June-time. "I didn't know you
were in the city."

"Well, little cousin girl, I'll confess I didn't dare," the young man
declared, boldly. "I've been studying awfully hard this year, and, now
I'm needed to paint The Great American Canvas, I can't end my useful
career under a big touring-car at the bottom of an embankment out on the
Winnowoc bluff road. So when I saw you coming into Uncle Cornie's office
in the bank I slipped away."

"And as to my own risk?" Jerry asked.

"Oh, Jerry Swaim, you would never have an accident in a hundred years.
There's nobody like you, little cousin mine, nobody at all."

Eugene Wellington put one well-formed hand lightly on the small white
hand lying on the wicker chair-arm, and, leaning forward, he looked down
into the face of the girl beside him. A handsome, well-set up, artistic
young fellow he was, fitted to adorn life's ornamental places. And if a
faint line of possible indecision of character might have suggested
itself to the keen-eyed reader of faces, other traits outweighed its
possibility. For his was a fine face, with a sort of gracious gentleness
in it that grows with the artist's growth. A hint of deeper
spirituality, too, that marks nobility of character, added to a winning
personality, put Eugene Wellington above the common class. He fitted the
rose-arbor, in "Eden" and the comradeship of good breeding. When a man
finds his element, all the rest of the world moves more smoothly
therefor.

"Nobody like me," Jerry repeated. "It's a good thing I'm the only one of
the kind. You'd say so if you knew what Aunt Jerry thinks of me. She has
been analyzing me and filing me away i