scarlet
buds of young maples. At the end of the path there was a rude bench
placed beside the stream, which broke from the dam above with a sound
that was like laughing water. The grass was powdered with small spring
flowers, and overhead a sycamore drooped its silvery branches to the
sparkling waves. Spring was in the air, in the scarlet buds of maples,
in the song of birds, in the warm wind that played on Sally's flushed
cheek and lifted a loosened curl on her forehead. And spring was in my
heart, too, as I sat there beside her, on the old bench, with her hand
in mine.

"You will marry me in November, Sally?"

"On the nineteenth of November, as I promised. Aunt Mitty and Aunt
Matoaca have forbidden me to mention your name to them, so I shall walk
with you to church some morning--to old Saint John's, I think, Ben."

"Then may God punish me if I ever fail you," I answered.

Her look softened. "You will never fail me."

"You will trust me now and in all the future?"

"Now and in all the future."

As we strolled back a little later to her horse that was tethered to a
maple on the roadside, I told her of the success of the National Oil
Company and of the possibility that I might some day be a rich man.

"As things go in the South, sweetheart, I'm a rich man now for my
years."

"I am glad for your sake, Ben, but I have never expected to have wealth,
you know."

"All the same I want you to have it, I want to give it to you."

"Then I'll begin to love it for your sake--if it means that to you?"

"It means nothing else. But what do you think it will mean to your aunts
next November?"

She shook her head, while I untethered Dolly, the sorrel mare.

"They haven't a particle of worldliness, either of them, and I don't
believe it will make any great difference if we have millions. Of course
if you were, for instance, the president of the South Midland they would
not have refused to receive you, but they would have objected quite as
strongly to your marrying into the family. What you are yourself might
concern them if they were inviting you to dinner, but when it is a
question of connecting yourself with their blood, it is what your father
was that affects them. I really believe," she finished half angrily,
half humorously, "that Aunt Mitty--not Aunt Matoaca--would honestly
rather I'd marry a well-born drunkard or libertine than you, whom she
calls 'quite an extraordinary-looking young man.'"

"Then if they can n