he mosquitoes of summer and
the frosts of winter. With comfortable wicker chairs and quantities of
soft cushions, it was a cosy nook that had become Miss Ocky's favorite
haunt for reading or writing.

She ousted a magnificent, smoky-blue Angora who, catlike, had decided
the best was none too good for him, seated herself and waved Copley to
another chair.

"I had a talk with Sheila this morning," she announced.

The young man's face had been flushed and dark, but now, at the mention
of Sheila's name, it lighted quickly. He had been acutely embarrassed
during the exchange of courtesies between his father and his aunt, and
he had felt a quick resentment at the innuendo she had flung at him and
which he had by no means missed, but these passing moods vanished in
favor of happier emotions.

"I wondered if you really would! But, say, Aunt Ocky--you surely
didn't have the nerve to mention your elopement scheme, did you?"

"I certainly did. My nerve is a very superior article. I wish to
goodness I could graft a piece of it onto your backbone."

"Oh. Can't a fellow be sensible, Aunt Ocky, without being accused of
spinelessness? However, for the love of Mike, tell me what she said!
She turned it down hard, of course."

"She did not, though it was obvious that she would have preferred to
hear it from your own lips. Naturally. At any rate, when I first got
there I broached the subject tactfully--"

"You couldn't do it any other way, Aunt Ocky."

"Don't be impertinent. She soon made it plain that she was willing to
talk frankly and openly--was glad of the rare opportunity to discuss
matters with a person of some intelligence. She has been having a
little unpleasantness of her own; did you know that? It appears her
father has been fearfully stirred up over something yesterday and
to-day, and this morning when she spoke of you in some connection he
was quite savage. He was never keen on the idea of a match between you
two, was he?"

"No. I'm afraid he has sense, too!"

"Well, his daughter has a mind of her own, and she has made it up. She
has wisely concluded that a lot of our happiness in this life has to be
snatched from the Fates who dangle it before our eyes, just out of our
reach. She feels that the most practical way for you and her to grab
yours is to marry first and let the fireworks follow. Opposition to
the marriage will be curiously ineffective if the marriage has already
taken place. I thoug