dly, dear. Suppose we go on
Friday? That will give you a day with your friend." She sent Carter for
her cloak and Honor and the Englishwoman strolled to the end of the
veranda.

"I don't believe we ought to wait even a day, if she feels the altitude
so," said Honor, troubled. "She's really very frail."

"I expect she can stick it a day," said Miss Bruce-Drummond, calmly.
"She looks fit enough. But--I say--where's the other one? Where's your
boy?"

The warm and happy color flooded the girl's face. "Jimsy is in Mexico
with his father, visiting their relatives there on a big ranch."

"You haven't thrown him over, have you?"

"Thrown Jimsy over? Thrown--" she stopped and drew a long breath. "I
could just as easily throw _myself_ over. Why, we--_belong_! We're part
of each other. I just--can't think of myself without thinking of
Jimsy--or of Jimsy without thinking of me." She said it quite simply and
steadily and smiled when she finished.

"I see," said the novelist. "Yes. I see. But you're both frightfully
young, aren't you? I expect your people will make you wait a long time,
won't they?"

"Well," said Honor, earnestly, "we're going to try our very best to
wait three years,--three from the time when we found out we were in love
with each other, you know,--two years longer now. Then we'll be
twenty-one." She spoke as if every one should be satisfied then, if they
dragged out separate existences until they had attained that hoary age,
and Miss Bruce-Drummond, hard on forty-one, grinned with entire good
nature.

"And I daresay they'll keep you over here all the while,--not let you go
home for holidays, for fear you might lose your heads and bolt for
Gretna Green?"

"Mercy, no!" Her eyes widened, startled. "I shall go home for all summer
next year! I meant to go this year, but Muzzie thought I ought to stay,
to be with Carter and Mrs. Van Meter, when they'd made such lovely plans
for me,--and it was really all right, this time, because Jimsy ought to
be with his father on the Mexican trip." Her smooth brow registered a
fleeting worry over James King the elder. "But next summer it'll be
home, and Catalina Island, and Jimsy!"

But it wasn't home for her next summer, after all. Mildred Lorimer
decided that she wanted three months on the Continent with her husband
and her daughter.

"Right," said Stephen Lorimer, amiably, "so long as we take the boy
along."

"You mean Rodney?" she wanted to know, not looking at hi