never can keep a girl more than
a week, and she's always wanting one. If Polly has tackled THAT job,
God help her."

"Cheer up! We're in that delightful state of uncertainty where Polly
may be blacking the cook stove, like a dutiful daughter; while Robert
has decided that he'd like a divorce," said Nancy Ellen.

"Nancy Ellen, there's nothing in that, so far as Robert is concerned.
He told me so the evening we came away," said Kate.

Nancy Ellen banged down a trunk lid and said: "Well, I am getting to
the place where I don't much care whether there is or there is not."

"What a whopper!" laughed Kate. "But cheer up. This is my trouble. I
feel it in my bones. Wish I knew for sure. If she's eloped, and it's
all over with, we might as well stay and finish our visit. If she's
married, I can't unmarry her, and I wouldn't if I could."

"How are you going to apply your philosophy to yourself?" asked Nancy
Ellen.

"By letting time and Polly take their course," said Kate. "This is a
place where parents are of no account whatever. They stand back until
it's time to clean up the wreck, and then they get theirs--usually
theirs, and several of someone's else, in the bargain."

As the train stopped at Hartley, Kate sat where she could see Robert on
the platform. It was only a fleeting glance, but she thought she had
never seen him look so wholesome, so vital, so much a man to be desired.

"No wonder a woman lacking in fine scruples would covet him," thought
Kate. To Nancy Ellen she said hastily: "The trouble's mine. Robert's
on the platform."

"Where?" demanded Nancy Ellen, peering from the window.

Kate smiled as she walked from the car and confronted Robert.

"Get it over quickly," she said. "It's Polly?"

He nodded.

"Did she remember to call on the Squire?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," said Robert. "It was at Peters', and they had the whole
neighbourhood in."

Kate swayed slightly, then lifted her head, her eyes blazing. She had
come, feeling not altogether guiltless, and quite prepared to overlook
a youthful elopement. The insult of having her only daughter given a
wedding at the home of the groom, about which the whole neighbourhood
would be laughing at her, was a different matter. Slowly the high
colour faded from Kate's face, as she stepped back. "Excuse me, Nancy
Ellen," she said. "I didn't mean to deprive you of the chance of even
speaking to Robert. I KNEW this was for me; I was over-anxio