ping her plate,
pondered thus: "I suppose Mr. F. is the Bride's father. I wonder what
present his aunt will give her? I wonder what 'F' stands for--Frost?
Fuller? Father and mother don't want the Bride to come; and mother
thinks the Bride don't want to come. So why should they ask her to come?
And why should she come? I wouldn't," Edith said; "but I hope she will,
for I love her! And oh, I _hope_ she'll bring her harp! I've never seen
a harpy. But people are funny," Edith summed it up; "inviting people and
not wanting 'em; and visiting 'em and not wanting to. It ain't sense,"
said Edith.

CHAPTER IV

In spite of his declaration of indifference to the feelings of his
guardian, the married boy was rapidly acquiring that capacity for
"worry" which Mr. Houghton desired to develop in him. _What would the
mail bring him from Green Hill?_ It brought nothing for a week--a week
in which he experienced certain bad moments which encouraged "worry" to
a degree that made his face distinctly older than on that morning under
the locust tree, when he had been married for fifty-four minutes. The
first of these educating moments came on Monday, when he went to see his
tutor, to say that he was--well, he was going to stop grinding.

"What?" said Mr. Bradley, puzzled.

"I'm going to chuck college, sir," Maurice said, and smiled broadly,
with the rollicking certainty of sympathy that a puppy shows when
approaching an elderly mastiff.

"Chuck college! What's the matter?" the mastiff said, putting
a protecting hand over his helpless leg, for Maurice's
restlessness--tramping about, his hands in his pockets--was a menace
to the plastered member.

"I'm going into business," the youngster said; "I--Well; I've got
married, and--"

"_What!_"

"--so, of course, I've got to go to work."

"See here, what are you talking about?"

The uneasy color sprang into Maurice's face, he stood still, and the
grin disappeared. When he said explicitly what he was "talking about,"
Mr. Bradley's angry consternation was like the unexpected snap of the
old dog; it made Eleanor's husband feel like the puppy. "I ought to have
rounded him up," Mr. Bradley was saying to himself; "Houghton will hold
me responsible!" And even while making unpleasant remarks to the
bridegroom, he was composing, in his mind, a letter to Mr. Houghton
about the helplessness incidental to a broken leg, which accounted for
his failure in "rounding up." "_I_ couldn't get on to