your intelligence, Cynthia."

"I have my allowance," she said, her lips curling.

"Yes," said her father, "while you live at home and do as you're told."

"Now, papa, don't tell me that you're going to behave like a lugubrious
parent in a novel! Don't tell me that you are going to cut me off with a
shilling!"

"I shan't do that," he said gravely; "it will be without a shilling."
But he tempered this savage statement with a faint smile.

"Papa, dear, is this quite definite? Are you talking in your right mind
and do you really mean what you say?"

"Suppose you talk the matter over with your mother--she's always
indulged you in every way. See what she says."

It developed that neither of Cynthia's parents was enthusiastic at the
prospect of her marrying a nameless young man--she had told them his
name, but that was all she got for her pains--who hadn't a penny and who
had had consumption, and might or might not be sound again. Personally
they did not believe that consumption can be cured. It can be arrested
for a time, they admitted, but it always comes back. Cynthia's mother
even made a physiological attack on Cynthia's understanding, with the
result that Cynthia turned indignantly pink and left the room, saying:

"If the doctor thinks it's perfectly right and proper for us to marry I
don't see the least point in listening to the opinions of excited and
prejudiced amateurs."

The ultimatum that she had from her parents was distinct, final, and
painful.

"Marry him if you like. We will neither forgive you nor support you."

They were perfectly calm with her--cool, affectionate, sensible, and
worldly, as it is right and proper for parents to be. She told them they
were wrong-headed, old-fashioned, and unintelligent; but as long as they
hadn't made scenes and talked loud she found that she couldn't help
loving them almost as much as she always had; but she loved G. G. very
much more. And having definitely decided to defy her family, to marry G.
G. and live happily ever afterward, she consulted her check-book and
discovered that her available munition of war was something less than
five hundred dollars--most of it owed to her dress-maker.

"Well, well!" she said; "she's always had plenty of money from me; she
can afford to wait."

And Cynthia wrote to her dress-maker, who was also her friend!

MY DEAR CELESTE: I have decided that you will have to afford to
wait for your money. I have an enterprise