also recalled that a plenitude of choicest flowers had
always graced her parlor lately.

"And why not," he answered coolly, "old Simmons is a widower worth a
million, has just built an elegant new residence of the granite we
quarried, and Ethel's in the market. I think she shows good sense--at
least your kind of good sense, Jack."

"Yes, and of all experienced people," asserted Nickerson, defiantly.
"Sentiment is a fine thing in books or on the stage, it may influence
silly girls or callow boys, but it's out of date in this age."

And Winn, recalling his own early episode with Ethel, and the lesson in
life that for weeks had been forced upon him, was more than half
inclined to believe his friend to be right.

And yet, as he thought of this prospective January and May affair, and a
fossil like Simmons, with dyed hair, false teeth, and certainly sixty
years wrinkling his face, he felt disgusted with Ethel. And the more he
thought of the groove he was in, of the cold, selfish, grasping city
life where mammon was king and sentiment a jest, the more his heart
turned to Rockhaven. Then the thought of Mona came back to him, and a
yearning for her, impossible to resist. And with it, self-reproach that
he had let his own discouragement control his actions so long. A few
days more did he waver, and then his heart's impulse won.

The winter had nearly passed and the days were lengthening when this
impulse came, but he waited no longer.

"I'm going to Rockhaven," he said to his aunt that night, "and shall be
gone a few days. I've obtained a week's leave of absence from the paper,
and start to-morrow. I want to see Jess Hutton and some of my old
friends there. I've also an idea that possibly the quarry can be started
again. If I can bring it about," he added, after a pause, "how would you
feel about loaning me a few thousand dollars, auntie?"

Then the motherly side of Mrs. Converse spoke out.

"I'll do it gladly, Winn," she responded. "I've felt all along that the
money you saved me was more yours than mine, and you shall have all of
it that you need."

And when Winn left the city, as once before, a new courage and new hopes
tinged his horizon.

And first and foremost in them was the flowerlike face and soulful eyes
of Mona.

The wisest of us, however, are but mere bats in this world, blindly
flying hither and thither. At times one may, by sheer good luck, fly
free; and then again we strike our heads against a wall.