t nothing except blue and that
particular shade of blue would have harmonised."

"I should have said green or pink."

"They would surely have clashed. If you can't melt into nature, it is
much safer to try for a discord. You are much surer to chord. That
blue does chord, and I doubt if a green would not have been a sort of
swear word in colour here."

"I am glad you like it," said Annie like a school girl. She felt very
much like one.

"I like you," Von Rosen said abruptly.

Annie said nothing. She sat very still.

"No, I don't like you. I love you," said Von Rosen.

"How can you? You have talked with me only twice."

"That makes no difference with me. Does it with you?"

"No," said Annie, "but I am not at all sure about--"

"About what, dear?"

"About what my aunts and grandmother will say."

"Do you think they will object to me?"

"No-o."

"What is it makes you doubtful? I have a little fortune of my own. I
have an income besides my salary. I can take care of you. They can
trust you to me."

Annie looked at him with a quick flush of resentment. "As if I would
even think of such a thing as that!"

"What then?"

"You will laugh, but grandmother is very old, although she sits up so
straight, and she depends on me, and--"

"And what?"

"If I married you, I could not, of course, play pinocle with
grandmother on Sunday."

"Oh, yes, you could. I most certainly should not object."

"Then that makes it hopeless."

Von Rosen looked at her in perplexity. "I am afraid I don't
understand you, dear little soul."

"No, you do not. You see, grandmother is in reality very good, almost
too good to live, and thinking she is being a little wicked playing
pinocle on Sunday when Aunt Harriet and Aunt Susan don't know it,
sort of keeps her going. I don't just know why myself, but I am sure
of it. Now the minute she was sure that you, who are the minister,
did not object, she would not care a bit about pinocle and it would
hurt her."

Annie looked inconceivably young. She knitted her candid brows and
stared at him with round eyes of perplexity. Karl von Rosen shouted
with laughter.

"Oh, well, if that is all," he said, "I object strenuously to your
playing pinocle with your grandmother on Sunday. The only way you can
manage will be to play hookey from church."

"I need not do that always," said Annie. "My aunts take naps Sunday
afternoons, but I am sure grandmother could keep awake if she thought
she cou