hotel bills of herself, her
partner, and Mr. Maugans.

Prue hesitated. It was an expense and a risk. Prue cautious! She would
take nobody for partner but Orton Hippisley. Perhaps he could borrow the
money from his father. She told him about it, and he was wild with
enthusiasm. He loved to dance with Prue. To invest money in enlarging
her fame would be divine.

He saw the judge. Then he heard him.

He came back to Prue and told her in as delicate a translation as he
could manage that it was all off. The judge had bellowed at him that not
only would he not finance his outrageous escapade with that shameless
Pepperall baggage, but if the boy dared to undertake it he would disown
him.

"Now you'll have to go," said Prue, grimly.

"But I have no money, honey," he protested, miserably.

"I'll pay your expenses and give you half what I get," she said.

He refused flatly to share in the profits. His poverty consented to
accept the railroad fare and food enough to dance on. And he would pay
that back the first job he got.

Then Prue went to Clint Sprague and offered to pay the bills if he would
give her three-fourths of the profits. He fumed; but she drove a good
bargain. Prue driving bargains! At last he consented, growling.

When Prue announced the make-up of her troupe there was a cyclone in her
own home. Papa was as loud as the judge.

"You goin' gallivantin' round the country with that Maugans idiot and
that young Hippisley scoundrel? Well, I guess not! You've disgraced us
enough in our own town, without spreading the poor but honorable name of
Pepperall all over Oscawanna and Perkinsville and Athens and Thebes."

The worn-out, typewritten-out Ollie pleaded against Prue's lawlessness.
It would be sure to cost her her place in the judge's office. It was bad
enough now.

Even Serina, who had become a mere echo of Prue, herself went so far as
to say, "Really, Prue, you know!"

Prue thought awhile and said: "I'll fix that all right. Don't you worry.
There'll be no scandal. I'll marry the boy."

XV

And she did! Took ten dollars from the hiding-place where she banked her
wealth, and took the boy to an Oscawanna preacher, and telegraphed home
that he was hers and she his and both each other's.

The news spread like oil ablaze on water. Mrs. Hippisley had consented
to take lessons of Prue, but she had never dreamed of losing her eldest
son to her. She and Serina had quite a "run-in" on the telephone.
Willia