t you," admitted Bob, with a blush.

"You mean you would like me to meet her," answered Madam Lee, with a
confiding pat on his arm. "It is sweet of you, Bob, whichever way you
put it. And after I have met the charmer you shall know exactly what I
think of her, too. Then if you marry her against my judgment, you will
have only yourself to thank for the consequences. Now leave it all to
me. I will arrange everything. In a day or two I will send the car
over to Wilton to fetch you, your aunt, Mr. Spence and this Miss--what
did you say her name was?"

"Hathaway."

"Hathaway! _Hathaway_!" echoed Madam Lee in an unsteady voice.

"Yes. Why?"

"Oh, nothing," quavered the old lady, making a tremulous attempt to
regain her poise. "Only it is not a common name. I--I--knew a
Hathaway once--very long ago--in the South."

CHAPTER XII

ROBERT MORTON MAKES A RESOLVE

Robert Morton returned from Belleport in a mood bordering on ecstasy,
his path now clear before him. He would woo Delight Hathaway and win
her, and with a strong mutual love and hope they would set forth in
life together. He had, to be sure, no capital but his youth, his
strength, and his education, but he did not shrink from hard work and
felt certain that he would be able not only to keep want in abeyance
but place happiness within the reach of the woman he loved.

Until Madam Lee, with her keen-visioned knowledge of human nature, had
ranged in perspective all the tangled circumstances that had so
insidiously woven themselves about him, he had been unable to see his
way. The fetters that held him were so delicate and intangible that
with an exaggerated sense of honor he had magnified them into bonds of
steel, never daring to believe that they might be snapped and leave no
scar. But now the facts stood lucidly forth. There was no actual
engagement between himself and Cynthia, nor had there ever been any
talk of one. He simply had been thrown constantly into her society and
had drifted, at first thoughtlessly and afterward indifferently, until
there had been created not only in the mind of the girl but also in the
minds of all her family a tacit expectation that ultimately their
permanent union would be consummated.

From the Galbraiths' point of view such a marriage would have been a
very gratifying one, for although Robert Morton was without money, in
his sterling character and his potentalities for success they had every
faith. A span