ent here. Well,
I don't know ez I blame him--for being interested, I mean. It strikes me
that in addition to bein' an enterprisin' young man he's also got
excellent taste and fine discrimination. He ought to go quite a ways in
the world--whut with coincidences favourin' him and everything."

The whimsical note died out of his voice. His tone became serious.

"Child," he said gently, "whut would you say--and whut's even more
important, whut would you do--ef I was to tell you that ef it hadn't
a-been fur old Aunt Sharley this great thing that's come into your life
probably never would have come into it? What ef I was to tell you that
if it hadn't a-been fur her you never would have knowed Mr. Harvey
Winslow in the first place--and natchelly wouldn't be engaged to marry
him now?"

"Why, Judge Priest, how could that be?" Her widened eyes betokened a
blank incredulity.

"Emmy Lou," he answered slowly, "in tellin' you whut I'm about to tell
you I'm breakin' a solemn pledge, and that's a thing I ain't much given
to doin'. But this time I figger the circumstances justify me. Now
listen: You remember, don't you, that in the first year or two following
after the time your mother left us, the estate was sort of snarled up?
Well, it was worse snarled up than you two children had any idea of. Two
or three of the heaviest investments your father made in the later years
of his life weren't turnin' out very well. The taxes on 'em amounted to
mighty nigh ez much ez whut the income frum 'em did. We didn't aim to
pester you two girls with all the details, so we sort of kept 'em to
ourselves and done the best we could. You lived simple and there was
enough to take care of you and to keep up your home, and we knowed we
could depend on Aunt Sharley to manage careful. Really, she knowed more
about the true condition of things than you did. Still, even so, you no
doubt got an inklin' sometimes of how things stood with regards to your
finances."

She nodded, saying nothing, and he went on:

"Well, jest about that time, one day in the early part of the summer I
had a visit frum Aunt Sharley. She come to me in my office down at the
courthouse, and I sent Jeff to fetch Lew Lake, and we both set down
there together with that old nigger woman, and she told us whut she had
to say. She told us that you children had growed up with the idea that
you'd go off to boardin' school somewheres after you were done with our
local schools, and that you we