d hung up his cap on a
projecting knob of the what-not--that was where he always put it. He
glanced into the dining-room and took in the waiting table.

"Haven't you had supper yet!"

"Mother isn't home."

He came towards her swiftly; his eyes shone with a sudden elated
tenderness. She raised her arms and turned away her face, but he swept
aside the ineffectual barrier. When he let her go she seated herself on
the farther side of the room. Her glance was full of a soft rebuke. He
met it, then looked down smilingly and awkwardly at his shoes.

"Where did you say your ma had gone?"

"She's gone to Mis' Lawrence's, and a few other places."

"Oh, calling. Old Mis' Norton goes about twice a year, and I ask her
what it amounts to."

"I guess you'll find ma's calls'll amount to something."

"How's that?" he demanded.

"She's--going to try and find out what they intend giving."

"What they intend giving?"

"Yes. And without they intend giving something worth while, she says she
won't invite 'em, and maybe we won't have a big wedding at all," she
finished, pathetically.

Joe did not answer. Esther stole an appealing glance at him.

"Does it seem a queer thing to do?"

"Well, yes, rather."

Her face quivered. "She said I'd done so much for Mis' Lawrence--"

"Well, you have, and I've wished a good many times that you wouldn't.
I'm sure I never knuckled to her, though she is my great-aunt."

"I never knuckled to her, either," protested Esther.

"You've done a sight more for her than I would have done, fixin' her
dresses and things, and she with more money than anybody else in town.
But your mother ain't going to call on everybody, is she?" he asked,
anxiously.

"Of course she ain't. Only she said, if it was going to be in June--but
I don't want it to be ever," she added, covering her face.

"Oh, it's all right," said Joe, penitently. He went over and put his arm
around her. Nevertheless, his eyes held a worried look.

Joe's father had bound him out to a farmer by the name of Norton until
his majority, when the sum of seven hundred dollars, all the little
fortune the father had left, together with three hundred more from
Norton, was to be turned over to him. But Joe would not be twenty-one
until October. It was going to be difficult for him to arrange for the
June wedding Esther desired. He was very much in love, however, and
presently he lifted his boyish cheek from her hair.

"I think I'll take that cot