.

"My dear boy," she said, "what a serious fellow you are! The girl who
falls in love with you for good and all, well--"

He gazed at her questioningly, gradually feeling a load leave him, a
load that he did not know he carried. Hazel was speaking:

"Julia had a habit of juggling with bankers' hearts. She's married
now, you know."

CHAPTER XVIII.

_IN THE COUNTRY OF OUR COUSINS._

Hall's lawn was decorated with Japanese lanterns. The little Mt. Alban
boys who passed in the dusk wondered if the time would ever come in
their lives when they should be eligible for a real garden-party. Such
a wondrous condition seemed very far off, like Heaven. And the little
girls who passed peeked through the hedge, like fairies seeking
admittance to a nymph gathering. There was no music as yet, for the
evening had scarcely set in, but the tables were set and the lanterns
threw a glimmer over the flower-beds and through the trees.

The party was, ostensibly, a welcome to the newly-married couple, James
and Julia Watersea Simpson; actually it was to announce that Miss Sadie
Hall had returned from Hamilton to accept the boredom of Mt. Alban
again for a little season.

It is not for this bank story to enter upon details of that garden
party; to spy on the sons of villagers behind dark balsams devouring
cigarettes borrowed from the village cut-up; to play dictagraph to the
gossips, or to hang around where the girls are chattering. However,
there were characters at that lawn social more or less concerned in our
story, and of whom we therefore ought to make mention.

Those characters occupied a place of prominence at the function, being
seated close to Miss Hall herself. She was paying them flattering
attention.

"Mr. Perry," she said, smilingly, "who would have thought you were
going to turn out such a sport?"

Far from being offended, Porter grinned gleefully, and incidentally
wondered where the money was coming from to pay the rent of the
roadster that had brought him up to see his Hometon girl visiting in
Mt. Alban.

"Well," he replied, "I never was what you'd call a willy, eh?"

"No," said Sadie, "but--well, you were so young, you know."

Porter's "girl" was talking in a low tone with a new bank junior who
was beginning to realize what a juvenile and unromantic affair school
had been. Sadie nudged Perry.

"You want to watch out," she whispered, so that the others could hear,
"or you'll be losing your fr