time man of the small
town and the country; he fancied that, while in grocery matters
and the like the world was full of guile, in matters of the
heart it was idyllic, Arcadian, with never a thought of duplicity,
except among a few obviously wicked and designing people.

"I guess we both want to see Ruth married well," was all she
could venture.

"I'd rather the girls stayed with us," declared Warham. "I'd
hate to give them up."

"Of course," hastily agreed Fanny. "Still--it's the regular
order of nature."

"Oh, Ruth'll marry--only too soon," said Warham. "And marry
well. I'm not so sure, though, that marrying any of old Wright's
breed would be marrying what ought to be called well. Money
isn't everything--not by a long sight--though, of course, it's
comfortable."

"I never heard anything against Sam," protested Mrs. Warham.

"You've heard what I've heard--that he's wild and loose. But
then you women like that in a man."

"We've got to put up with it, you mean," cried Fanny, indignant.

"Women like it," persisted Warham. "And I guess Sam's only
sowing the usual wild oats, getting ready to settle. No, mother,
you let Ruth alone. If she wants him, she'll get him--she or Susan."

Mrs. Warham compressed her lips and lowered her eyes. Ruth or
Susan--as if it didn't matter which! "Susan isn't _ours_," she
could not refrain from saying.

"Indeed, she is!" retorted George warmly. "Why, she couldn't be
more our own----"

"Yes, certainly," interrupted Fanny.

She moved toward the door. She saw that without revealing her
entire scheme--hers and Ruth's--she could make no headway with
George. And if she did reveal it he would sternly veto it. So
she gave up that direction. She went upstairs; George took his
hat from the front hall rack and pushed open the screen door. As
he appeared on the veranda Susan was picking dead leaves from
one of the hanging baskets; Ruth, seated in the hammock, hands
in lap, her whole attitude intensely still, was watching her
with narrowed eyes.

"What's this I hear," cried Warham, laughing, "about you two
girls setting your caps for Sam Wright?" And his good-humored
brown eyes glanced at Ruth, passed on to Susan's wealth of wavy
dark hair and long, rounded form, and lingered there.

Ruth lowered her eyes and compressed her lips, a trick she had
borrowed from her mother along with the peculiarities of her
mother's disposition that it fitted. Susan flung a laughing
g