finely."

Mr. Wellington looked at her.

"My mind was so filled with that Northern Atlantic matter last month
when you talked of your prince," he said, "that I don't think I did the
question justice. It was too far off--and the railroad mess was so
confoundedly near. Now then, let's have it."

"How--what do you mean?" asked Mrs. Wellington, a bit uneasily.

"What have you been trying to do, Belle?"

"Why, I have n't been trying to do anything. The situation has shaped
itself without any effort on my part."

"You mean Anne loves the Russian! Bosh! How long has he been
here--this is the third day!" The room rang with his laughter.

"I did not say that she loved him. I said they seemed to be getting
on."

Mr. Wellington clasped his big hands over his knees and gazed at the
floor. "Belle," he said, after a few minutes, "the idea of Anne living
away off in a foreign country does n't swallow easily. Life is too
short--and, Belle, I don't think you have ever loved Anne quite as I
have."

Mrs. Wellington thought for a moment of the adoration which this big
man had always held for their daughter--an emotion in no way
conflicting with his conjugal devotion and yet equally tremendous, and
smiled without a trace of jealousy.

"Yes, I think that is true," she said. "Yet of course you cannot
question my love for her. I certainly would be the last to thwart her
ambitions."

"Nor I," returned Wellington with a sigh. "And yet, Belle, so far as
you are concerned, you don't need such a match. Your position
certainly needs no assurance, either here or abroad. We are not in the
business of buying foreign titles, you know. We don't have to.
Besides, we thrashed all that out when Anne was a child. The girl must
marry, of course; for years that has hung over me like a bad dream.
But it's natural and right and for the best. But, Belle, since she has
grown up and her marriage has become a question of narrowing
time--especially since that French nobleman, De Joinville, was buzzing
around last year--I have had an ambition for grandchildren that can say
'grandpa' in a language I understand. That is the way I feel about it."

His wife laughed at this characteristic speech and reaching out, patted
his hand. He, in turn, seized and held her hand, quite covering it.

"Naturally, Ronald, I feel just as you do about having to purchase
foreign titles. But it has pleased me to have the Prince here, in view
of the fact t