e was practical again. That word "protect" was too robust
for sentimentality. "As for being jealous, that, about me, is a joke!
And if you were, it would only mean that you loved me--so I would be
flattered. I hope you'll be jealous! Eleanor, _promise_ me you'll be
jealous?" They both laughed; then he said: "I've made up my mind to one
thing. I won't go back to college."

"Oh, Maurice!"

He was very matter of fact. "I'm a married man; I'm going to support my
wife!" He ran his fingers through his thick blond hair in ridiculous
pantomime of terrified responsibility. "Yes, sir! I'm out for dollars.
Well, I'm glad I haven't any near relations to get on their ear, and try
and mind my business for me. Of course," he ruminated, "Bradley will
kick like a steer, when I tell him he's bounced! But that will be on
account of money. Oh, I'll pay him, all same," he said, largely. "Yes;
I'm going to get a job." His face sobered into serious happiness. "My
allowance won't provide bones for Bingo! So it's business for me."

She looked a little frightened. "Oh, have I made you go to work?" She
had never asked him about money; she had plunged into matrimony without
the slightest knowledge of his income.

"I'll chuck Bradley, and I'll chuck college," he announced, "I've got
to! Of course, ultimately, I'll have plenty of money. Mr. Houghton has
dry-nursed what father left me, and he has done mighty well with it; but
I can't touch it till I'm twenty-five--worse luck! Father had theories
about a fellow being kept down to brass tacks and earning his living,
before he inherited money another man had earned--that's the way he put
it. Queer idea. So, I must get a job. Uncle Henry'll help me. You may
bet on it that Mrs. Maurice Curtis shall not wash dishes, nor yet feed
the swine, but live on strawberries, sugar, and--What's the rest of it?"

"I have a little money of my own," she said; "six hundred a year."

"It will pay for your hairpins," he said, and put out his hand and
touched her hair--black, and very soft and wavy "but the strawberries
I shall provide."

"I never thought about money," she confessed.

"Of course not! Angels don't think about money."

* * * * *

"So they were married"; and in the meadow, fifty-four
minutes later, the sun and wind and moving shadows, and the
river--flowing--flowing--heralded the golden years, and ended
the saying: "_lived happy ever afterward_."

CHAPTER II