w it made Aunt Isobel take a firm
stand and stick it out. You have certainly jolted the family out of its
ruts, Quin. Look at Uncle Ranny; would you ever take him for the same
person he was six months ago?"

Quin removed his enamored gaze from her face long enough to glance toward
the house, where the usually elegant useless Randolph was perched in the
crotch of an old ash tree, sawing off a dead limb, and singing as he
sawed.

"Well, when it comes to him, I guess I _have_ had a finger in the pie,"
said Quin with pardonable pride. "He hasn't slipped the trolley for two
months; and if he can stay on the track now, it will be a cinch for him
after the first of July. All he needed was a real interest in life, and a
chance to work things out for himself."

"It's what we all need," Eleanor said gloomily. "I wish I could do what I
liked."

"What would you do?"

"I'd go straight to New York and study for the stage. It isn't a
whim--it's what I've wanted most to do ever since I was a little girl. I
may not have any great talent, but Papa Claude thinks I have. So does
Captain Phipps. To have to wait a whole year until I'm of age is too
stupid for words. It's just some more of grandmother's tyranny, and I'm
not going to submit much longer; would you?"

Quin contemplated his clasped fists earnestly. For the first time, his
belief in the consent of the governed admitted of exceptions.

"I'd go a bit slow," he said, feeling his own way cautiously. "This stage
business is a doubtful proposition. I don't see where the fun comes in,
pretending to be somebody else all the time."

"You would if you didn't like being yourself. Besides, I don't live my
own life as it is."

"You will some day--when you get married."

"But that's just it! I don't intend to marry--I am going to devote my
whole life to my work."

Quin, having but recently recovered from the fear that she was
contemplating matrimony, now underwent a similar torture at her avowal
that she was not. The second possibility was only a shade less appalling
than the first.

"The trouble is," she went on very confidentially, "I am not interested
in anything in the world but my art."

"Oh, come now, Miss Eleanor!" Quin rallied her. "You know you were
interested in the work out at the camp."

"That's true. I except that."

"And you can't say you haven't been interested in our selling this farm,
and getting Mr. and Mrs. Ranny fixed up, and all that."

"Of course I've