ous places and by various disgraceful means and had
furthermore succeeded in ensnaring her youthful affections, et cetera,
et cetera.

"The poor child actually believes herself in love with him," wrote the
poor child's mother. "She protests ridiculously that she is engaged to
him and will marry him in spite of her father or myself or the protests
of sensible people. I write to you, therefore, assuming you likewise to
be a sensible person, and requesting that you use your influence with
the--to put the most charitable interpretation of his conduct--misguided
and foolish young man and show him the preposterous folly of his
pretended engagement to my daughter. Of course the whole affair,
CORRESPONDENCE INCLUDED, must cease and terminate AT ONCE."

And so on for two more pages. The color had returned to Albert's cheeks
long before he finished reading. When he had finished he rose to his
feet and, throwing the letter upon his grandfather's desk, turned away.

"Well, Al?" queried Captain Zelotes.

Albert's face, when he turned back to answer, was whiter than ever, but
his eyes flashed fire.

"Do you believe that?" he demanded.

"What?"

"That--that stuff about my being a--a sneak and--and ensnaring her--and
all the rest? Do you?"

The captain took his pipe from his mouth.

"Steady, son, steady," he said. "Didn't I tell you before you begun
to read at all that I didn't necessarily believe it because that woman
wrote it."

"You--you or no one else had better believe it. It's a lie."

"All right, I'm glad to hear you say so. But there's a little mite of
truth here and there amongst the lies, I presume likely. For instance,
you and this Fosdick girl have been--er--keepin' company?"

"Her name is Madeline--and we are engaged to be married."

"Oh! Hum--I see--I see. And, bein' as the old lady--her mother, Mrs.
Fosdick, I mean--hasn't suspected anything, or, at any rate, hasn't
found out anything until now, yesterday, or whenever it was, I judge you
have been meetin'--er--Madeline at places where there wasn't--well, too
large a crowd. Eh?"

Albert hesitated and was, momentarily, a trifle embarrassed. But he
recovered at once.

"I met her first at the drug store last summer," he said defiantly.
"Then I met her after that at the post office and at the hotel dance
last fall, and so on. This year I met her--well, I met her first down by
the beach, where I went to write. She liked poetry and--and she helped
me wit