mmer."

This being a familiar opening to a disagreeable subject, the two young
people lapsed into silence, and Mrs. Nelson was constrained to address
her communications to the tea-pot. She glanced about the big,
old-fashioned room and sighed.

"It's nothing short of criminal to keep all this old mahogany buried
here in the country, and the cut-glass and silver. And to think that
the house cannot be sold for two more years! Not until Ruth is of age!
What _do_ you suppose your dear grandfather _could_ have been
thinking of?"

This question, eliciting no reply from the tea-pot, remained suspended
in the air until it attracted Ruth's wandering attention.

"I beg your pardon, aunt. What grandfather was thinking of? About the
place? Why, I guess he hoped that Carter and I would keep it."

Carter looked over his paper. "Keep this old cemetery? Not I! The day
it is sold I start for Europe. If one lung is gone and the other
going, I intend to enjoy myself while it goes."

"Carter!" begged Ruth, appealingly.

He laughed. "You ought to be glad to get rid of me, Ruth. You've
bothered your head about me ever since you were born."

She slipped her hand into his as it lay on the table, and looked at
him wistfully.

"The idea of the old governor thinking we'd want to stay here!" he
said, with a curl of the lip.

"Perfectly ridiculous!" echoed Mrs. Nelson.

"I don't know," said Ruth; "it's more like home than any place else. I
don't think I could ever bear to sell it."

"Now, my dear Ruth," said Mrs. Nelson, in genuine alarm, "don't be
sentimental, I beg of you. When once you make your debut, you'll feel
very different about things. Of course the place must be sold: it
can't be rented, and I'm sure you will never get me to spend another
summer in Clayton. You could not stay here alone."

Ruth sat with her chin in her hands and gazed absently out of the
window. She remembered when that yard was to her as the garden of
Eden. As a child she had been brought here, a delicate, faded little
hot-house plant, and for three wonderful years had been allowed to
grow and blossom at will in the freedom of outdoor life. The glamour
of those old days still clung to the place, and made her love
everything connected with it. The front gate, with its wide white
posts, still held the records of her growth, for each year her
grandfather had stood her against it and marked her progress. The huge
green tub holding the crape myrtle was once a