e will
soon begin to turn, and we must make haste or it will be too late.

No, Mary had plenty of practical matters, too, to engage her attention
and keep her feet on the earth.

For one thing there was Wally Cabot--he who had so lately serenaded Mary
in the moonlight. But I'll tell you about him later.

Then the settlement of her father's estate kept coming up for action.
Judge Cutler and Mary's two aunts were the trustees--an arrangement which
didn't please Uncle Stanley any too well, although he was careful not to
show it. And the more Mary saw of the silvery haired judge with his
hawk's eyes and gentle smile, the more she liked him.

One of the first things they discovered was that Mary's heritage
consisted of the factory by the river--but little else. Practically all
the bonds and investments that Josiah had ever owned had been sold for
the greater glory of Spencer & Son--to buy in other firms and patents--to
increase the factory by the river. As her father had once confided to
Mary this had taken money--"a dreadful lot of money"--she remembered the
wince with which he had spoken--and a safe deposit box which was nearly
empty bore evidence to the truth of what he had said.

"High and low," mused the judge when the inventory was at last completed,
"it's always the same. The millionaire and the mill-hand--somehow they
always manage to leave less than every one expected--"

"Why is that?" asked Mary. "Is it because the heirs expect too much?"

"No, child. I think it's the result of pride. As a rule, man is a proud
animal and he doesn't like to tell anything which doesn't redound to his
credit. If a man buys bonds, for instance, he is very apt to mention it
to his family. But if for any reason he has to sell those bonds, he will
nearly always do it quietly and say nothing about it, hoping to buy them
back again later, or something better yet--

"I've seen so many estates," he continued, "shrink into next to
nothing--so many widows who thought they were well off, suddenly waking
up and finding themselves at the mercy of the world--the little they have
often being taken away from them by the first glib sharper who comes
long--that I sometimes think every man should give his family a show-down
once a year. It would surely save a lot of worries and heartaches later
on--

"Still," he smiled, looking down at the inventory, with its noble line of
figures at the bottom of the column, "I don't think you'll have much
t