'll be comin'
around to disgrace you, puttin' my boots on the furniture and--"

"Dad!"

"Won't I? Well, maybe I won't. I cal'late by that time I'll be broke
to harness. Your mother's gettin' in with the swells so, lately, Barney
Black's wife and the rest, that I'll have to mind my manners. There!
let's go into the sittin'-room a few minutes and give Zuba a chance to
clear off. Sam's tendin' store and his dinner can wait a spell; judgin'
by the time he took for breakfast he hadn't ought to be hungry for the
next week."

In the sitting-room they spoke of many things, of Gertrude's departure
for school--she was leaving on the three o'clock train--of the
engagement, of course, and of the three thousand dollar windfall from
Aunt Lavinia. The captain had told that bit of news when they sat down
to dinner.

"What is that cousin's name?" asked Gertrude. "The one who inherits all
of your aunt's fortune?"

"Let's see. His name? I ought to know it well's I know my own.
It's--it's Starvation, or somethin' like that. Somethin' about bein'
hungry, anyhow. Hungerford, Percy Hungerford, that's it!"

Gertrude looked surprised.

"Not Percy Hungerford--of Scarford!" she cried. "What sort of a man is
he? What does he look like?"

"Looked like a picked chicken, last time I saw him. Kind of a spindlin'
little critter, with sandy complexion and hair, but dressed--my soul!
there wasn't any picked chicken look about his clothes."

Gertrude nodded. "I believe it is the same one," she said. "Yes, I am
sure of it. He came out to the college at one of our commencements. One
of the girls invited him. He danced with me--once. They said he was very
wealthy."

"Humph! All the wealth he had come from Aunt Laviny, far's I ever
heard. He was her pet and the only thing she ever spent money on, except
herself. And you met him! Well, this is a small world. Like him, did
you?"

"No," said Gertrude, and changed the subject.

Before her father departed for the store and she went to her room to
finish packing, she sat upon the arm of his chair and, bending down,
said:

"Daddy, if you hadn't got this money, this three thousand dollars, do
you know what I had very nearly made up my mind to do?"

"No, I'm sure I don't."

"I had almost decided not to stay at college, but to come back here and
live with you and mother."

"For the land sakes! Why?"

"Because I was sure you needed me. You never told me, of course--being
you, you wouldn't--but I