plane, of course, so I must be in the second."

"Why, Geraldine Swaim, I never heard you speak so of your aunt before!"
Eugene Wellington exclaimed. He had caught a new and very real line in
the girl's face as she spoke.

"Maybe not. But don't go Geraldine-ing me. It's too Aunt Jerry-ish. I'm
coming to understand her better because I'm doing my own thinking now,"
Jerry replied.

"As if you hadn't always done that, you little tyrant! I bear the scars
of your teeth on my arms now--or I would bear them if I hadn't given up
to you a thousand times years ago," Eugene declared, laughingly.

"That's just it," Jerry replied. "I've been let to have my own way until
Aunt Jerry thinks I must go on having just what she thinks I want, and
to do that I must be dependent on her. And--Wait a minute, Gene--you
will be dependent on her, too. You have only your gift. So both of us
are to be pensioners of hers. That's her plan."

"I won't be," Eugene Wellington declared, stoutly. And then, in loving
thought of Jerry, he added: "I don't want to, Jerry. I want to do great
things, the best that God has given me to do, not merely for myself, but
for your sake--and for all the world. That seems to me to be what
artists are for."

"And I won't be, either," Jerry insisted. "I won't. You needn't look so
incredulous. Let me tell you something. The evening before Uncle Cornie
died--" Jerry broke off suddenly.

It seemed unfair to betray the one burst of confidence that the
colorless old man had given up to on the last evening of his earthly
life. Jerry knew that it was to her, and for her alone, that he had
spoken.

"This is what I want to tell you. I have no income now. Aunt Jerry is
right, although she never told me that herself. But I have a plan to
make a living for myself."

Eugene Wellington leaned back and laughed aloud. "You, Miss Geraldine
Swaim, who never earned a dollar in your precious life! I always knew
you were a dreamer, but you are going wrong now, Jerry. You must look
out for belfry bats under that golden thatch of yours. Only artists dare
those wild flights so far--and they do it only on canvas and then get
rejected by the hanging committee."

Jerry paid no heed to his bantering words as she went on with serious
earnestness: "My estate--from my father--is a claim out at New Eden,
Kansas. Twelve hundred acres. It has never been managed well,
consequently it has never paid well. Look at 'Eden' here"--Jerry lifted
a ha