irting
of the most reprehensible sort. But there was his dual nature; a strain
of the errant Corsican had survived to debauch him.

And if she didn't want to be "led on," he thought indignantly, why did
she so persistently put herself in the way of it? She was always there!
Serve her right, then! Serve the Hollins boy right, too!

Grandma eyed them shrewdly with her Demon's glance of questioning, but
did nothing to keep them apart. On the contrary, she would often
brazenly leave them together after conducting them to remote nooks. She
made no flimsy excuses. She seemed indifferent to the fate of this
tender bud left at the mercy of one whom she affected to regard as a
seasoned roue.

There were four days of this regrettable philandering. On the fifth
Breede manifested alarming symptoms of recovery. He ceased to be the
meek man he was under actual suffering, and was several times guilty of
short-worded explosions that should never have reached the ears of good
women.

Said the flapper in tones of genuine dismay that evening:

"I'm afraid Pops is going to be well enough to go to town to-morrow!"

Even Grandma, pacing a bit of choice turf near at hand, rehearsing her
lines in the mob scene, was shocked at this.

"You are a selfish little pig!" she called.

"But _he_ will have to go away, if Pops goes," said the flapper, in
magnificent extenuation.

The words told. Grandma seemed to see things in a new light.

"You come with me," she commanded; "both of you."

Ahead of them she led the way to that pergola where Bean had once
overheard their talk.

"Sit down," said Grandma, and herself sat between them.

"You are a couple of children," she began accusingly. "Why, when I was
your age--" She broke off suddenly, and for some moments stared into the
tracery of vines.

"When I was your age," she began once more, but in a curiously altered
voice--"Lord! What a time of years!" She spoke slowly, softly, as one
who would evoke phantoms. "Why, at your age," she turned slightly to the
flapper, "I'd been married two years, and your father was crawling about
under my feet as I did the housework."

She was still looking intently ahead to make her vision alive.

"What a time of years, and how different! Sixty years ago--why, it seems
farther back than Noah's ark. The log cabins in the little clearings,
and people marrying when they wanted to--always early, and working hard
and raising big families. I was the only girl,