is. All I ask is that you will wait the full year before you make any
definite promise of marriage."

"I will," said Tony. "I meant to do that any way. I am not such a foolish
child as maybe you have been thinking I was. I am pretty much grown up,
Uncle Phil. And I have plenty of sense. It I hadn't--I should be married
to Alan this minute."

He smiled a little sadly at that.

"Youth! Youth! Yes, Tony, I believe you have sense. Maybe I have
under-estimated it. Any way I thank the good Lord for it. No more
secrets? Everything clear?"

He lifted her face in his hands and looked down into her eyes with tender
searching.

"Not a secret. I am very glad to have you know. We all feel better the
moment we dump all our woes on you," she sighed.

He smiled and stroked her hair.

"I had much rather be a dumping ground than be shut out of the confidence
of any one of you. That hurts. We all have to stand by Larry, just now.
Not in words but in--well, we'll call it moral support. The poor lad
needs it."

"Oh, Uncle Phil! Did he tell you or did you guess?"

"A little of both. The boy is in a bad hole, Tony. But he will keep out
of the worst of the bog. He has grit and chivalry enough to pull through
somehow. And maybe before many weeks the mystery will be cleared for
better or worse. We can only hope for the best and hold on tight to
Larry, and Ruth too, till they are out of the woods."

CHAPTER XX

A YOUNG MAN NOT FOR SALE

Philip Lambert was rather taken by surprise when Harrison Cressy appeared
at the store one day late in August, announcing that he had come to talk
business and practically commanding the young man to lunch with him that
noon. It was Saturday and Phil had little time for idle conjecture, but
he did wonder every now and then that morning what business Carlotta's
father could possibly have with himself, and if by any chance Carlotta
had sent him.

Later, seated in the dining-room of the Eagle Hotel, Dunbury's one
hostelry, it seemed to Phil that his host was distinctly nervous, with
considerably less than his usual brusque, dogmatic poise of manner.

Having left soup the waiter shuffled away with the congenital air of
discouragement which belongs to his class, and Harrison Cressy got down
to business in regard both to the soup and his mission in Dunbury. He was
starting a branch brokerage concern in a small city just out of Boston.
He needed a smart young man to put at the head of it. The s