onsequence the girl is a fine French scholar; has read broadly both
foreign and English literature; is familiar with ancient and modern
history and mathematics; and recently a professor from Harvard, who has
boarded summers with the family, has instructed her in the natural
sciences. She is much better educated than most of the society girls
I've met."

"Than my granddaughter Cynthia, I dare say," was the quick comment.

"Oh--eh--"

"You need not try to be polite, Bob. I am not proud of Cynthia's
education," asserted Madam Lee. "For all her wealth and all her
opportunity to make herself accomplished she has never mastered one
thing. If she could even sew well or keep house I should rejoice. But
she can't. As for languages, music, art--bah! She is as ignorant as
if she had been brought up in a home in the slums. A thin society
veneer such as the typical fashionable boarding-school washes over the
outside and a little helter-skelter reading and travel is all Cynthia
has acquired. A real education entailed too much effort. So she is
what we see her,--a thoughtless, extravagant, pleasure-seeking
creature. She is a great disappointment to me, a great disappointment!"

Robert Morton did not reply.

"Come now, Bob. Why don't you agree with me?"

"I am fond of Cynthia," said the young man in a low tone.

"I know you are. Sometimes I have worried lest you were too fond of
her."

There was no response.

"Cynthia is not the wife for you, my dear boy, and never was. I am
older than you and I know life. Moreover, I love you very dearly.
Were you of my own blood I believe I could not care more deeply for you
than I do. It would break my heart to see you make a foolish
marriage--to see you married to a girl like Cynthia. You never would
be happy with her in the world. Why, it takes a small fortune even to
keep her contented. It is money, money, money, all the time. She
cares for little else, and unless a man kept her supplied with that
there would be no peace in the house."

"Aren't you a little hard on her?"

"Not too hard," came firmly from Madam Lee. "You think precisely as I
do, too, only you are too loyal and too chivalrous to own it."

There was a pause broken only by the tinkle of the teacups.

"No, Bob, you let Cynthia alone. She will get over it. And if you
have found the jewel that you think you have, be brave enough to assert
your freedom and marry her. You are not pledged to Cynthia,