ees him?" objected Madam
Fulton. "You haven't set eyes on Peter for five years. He may be
Parisian to the backbone. You wouldn't want to tie him by the leg over
here."

"So Osmond says. But he hopes he won't want to go back."

"I can tell him one thing," said the other old lady; "he'd better make
up his mind to some big centre, Paris or New York, or he won't get
Electra. Electra knows what she wants, and it isn't seclusion. She is
going to be the wife of a celebrated painter, and she'll insist on the
perquisites. I know Electra."

Mrs. Grant smiled in deprecation; but Stark had a habit of intuitive
leaps, and he judged that she also knew Electra. His mind wandered a
little, as his eyes ran over the nearer features of the place. It hardly
suggested wealth: only comfort and beauty, the grace that comes of long
devotion, the loving eye, the practiced hand. Somebody's heart had been
put into it. This was the labor that was not hired. He had a strong
curiosity to see Osmond, and yet he could not ask for him because Madam
Fulton had once written him some queer tale of the man's sleeping in the
woods, in a house of his own building, and living the wild life his body
needed. One thing he learned now: Osmond's name was never out of his
grandmother's mouth. She quoted his decisions as if they stood for
ultimate wisdom. His ways were good and lovely to her.

The forenoon hour went by, and finally Madam Fulton remembered.

"Bless me!" she said. "It's luncheon time. Come, Billy."

The road was brighter now under the mounting sun. Madam Fulton was a
little tired, and they walked silently. Presently, at her own gate, she
suggested, not grudgingly, but as if the charm of goodness was,
unhappily, assured,--

"I suppose she's lovely!"

"Great! She's one of those creatures that have good mother-stuff in
them. It doesn't matter much what they mother. It's there. It's a kind
of force. It helps--I don't know exactly how."

"Now can't you see what I mean? That woman has had big things. She had
one of the great loves. She built it up, piece by piece, with Charlie.
He kept a devotion for her that wasn't to be compared with the tempest
he felt about me. I'm sure of that."

Stark looked at her as they walked, his eyes perplexedly denying the
evidence of his ears.

"Do you know, Florrie," he said, "it's incredible to hear you talk so."

"Why?"

"You have a zest for life, a curiosity about it. Why, it's simply
tremendous."

"No,