rse, and
though other less fortunate maids envied Mona, and many of the good
mothers voiced their congratulations to Mrs. Hutton, there was no
opposition to this summer idyl.

One thing Winn noticed, however, and that was the pertinent fact that
when he "dropped in" at Mona's home, as he so often did, her mother
usually found some excuse to absent herself and leave the young couple
alone. Had he been desirous of wooing this winsome maid nothing would
have pleased him better, but he hardly felt that way. It was true she
interested him, for what young man could resist her sweet and tender
ways, her patience with her mother's implacable dislike of her violin
playing and the beautiful soul her truthful eyes bespoke? Then the hours
with her in the romantic spot in which she had chosen to seek the
goddess of music were more than charming. In a way this trysting place
began to seem sacred to him, and the secret hours he had passed with her
there a tender bond between them. All these sweet motive forces that
move man's nature, like so many little hands, began to entwine
themselves in his. He had no thought of marrying. He realized that he
had yet to carve his way upward to independence before thinking of a
home and wife, and beyond that the lesson of distrust Ethel Sherman had
taught him still held sway. He was not a model of discretion; he was an
unthinking young man with the germs of fine honor and sturdy honesty
latent within him, and in spite of the cynicism he had imbibed from Jack
Nickerson he was sure in the end to commit no folly, nor wrong man,
woman, or child.

And yet, insensibly, he was doing Mona Hutton the greatest wrong in his
power--almost.

Some realizing sense of this came to him after that evening beside the
old tide mill, when his words had caused a single tear to fall upon the
hand that helped her to arise, and yet he could not tell what he had
said that hurt her so.

There is, perhaps, nothing so fascinating in this wide world to a young
man as the first signs of a sweet maid's budding love for him, and it
must be stated, nothing is harder to turn away from, and Winn was no
exception to young men in general. And now that he was conscious of it,
that fact, coupled with the business dilemma confronting him, created a
double burden. He saw whither he was drifting with her and seeing, had
not the heart to turn away. On the other hand, the Rockhaven Granite
Company began to seem a quagmire of fraud in whic