ver came and rode away, and
came again. He sparkled and shone and worshipped, but not a word did
he say about the future. He seemed content with this idyl of old
gardens, scented twilights, starlight nights, with Beauty's eyes for
him alone radiant eyes that matched the stars.

Yet as the days went on the radiance was dimmed. Becky was in a state
of bewilderment which bordered on fear. George showed himself an
incomparable lover, but always he was silent about the things which she
felt cried for utterance.

So at last one day she spoke to the Judge.

"Granddad, did you kiss Grandmother before you asked her to marry you?"

"Asking always comes first, my dear. And you are too young to think of
such things."

Grandfather was, thus obviously, no help. He sat in the Bird Room and
dreamed of the days when the stuffed mocking-bird on the wax branch
sang to a young bride, and his ideal of love had to do with the courtly
etiquette of a time when men knelt and sued and were rewarded with the
touch of finger tips.

As for George, he found himself liking this affair rather more than
usual. There was no denying that the child was tremendously
attractive--with her youth and beauty and the reserve which like a
stone wall seemed now and then to shut her in. He had always a feeling
that he would like to climb over the wall. It had pricked his interest
to find in this little creature a strength and delicacy which he had
found in no other woman.

He had had one or two letters from Madge, and had answered them with a
line. She gave rather generously of her correspondence and her letters
were never dull. In the last one she had asked him to join her on the
North Shore.

"I am sorry," she said, "for the new little girl. I have a feeling
that she won't know how to play the game and that you'll hurt her. You
will probably think that I am jealous, but I can't help that. Men
always think that women are jealous when it comes to other women. They
never seem to understand that we are trying to keep the world straight.

"Oscar writes that Flora isn't well, that all her other guests are gone
except you--and that she wants me. But why should I come? I wish he
wouldn't ask me. Something always tugs at my heart when I think of
Flora. She has so much and yet so little. She and Oscar would be much
happier in a flat on the West Side with Flora cooking in a kitchenette,
and Oscar bringing things home from the delicatessen.