y three months I have to
go through this same thing. There's Ferdy Wickersham--handsome, elegant
manners, very ri--with fine prospects every way, devoted to you for ever
so long. I don't care for his mother, but his people are now received
everywhere. Why--?"

"Mamma, I would not marry Ferdy Wickersham if he were the last man
in--to save his life--not for ten millions of dollars. And he does not
care for me."

"Why, he is perfectly devoted to you," insisted Mrs. Yorke.

"Ferdy Wickersham is not perfectly devoted to any one except
himself--and never will be," asserted Alice, vehemently. "If he ever
cared for any one it is Louise Caldwell."

Mrs. Yorke shifted her ground.

"There's Norman Wentworth? One of the best--"

"Ah! I don't love Norman. I never could. We are the best of friends, but
I just like and respect him."

"Respect is a very safe ground to marry on," said Mrs. Yorke,
decisively. "Some people do not have even that when they marry."

"Then I am sorry for them," said Miss Alice. "But when I marry, I want
to love. I think it would be a crime to marry a man you did not love.
God made us with a capacity to form ideals, and if we deliberately fall
below them--"

Mrs. Yorke burst out laughing.

"Oh, stuff! That boy has filled your head with enough nonsense to last a
lifetime. I would not be such a parrot. I want to finish my letter now."

Mrs. Yorke concluded her letter, and two mornings later the Yorkes took
the old two-horse stage that plied between the Springs and the little
grimy railway-station, ten miles away at the foot of the Ridge, and
metaphorically shook the dust of Ridgely from their feet, though, from
their appearance when they reached the railway, it, together with much
more, must have settled on their shoulders.

The road passed the little frame school-house, and as the stage rattled
by, the young school-teacher's face changed. He stood up and looked out
of the window with a curious gaze in his burning eyes. Suddenly his face
lit up: a little head under a very pretty hat had nodded to him. He
bowed low, and went back to his seat with a new expression. That bow
chained him for years. He almost forgave her high-headed mother.

Alice bore away with her a long and tragic letter which she did not
think it necessary to confide to her mother at this time, in view of the
fact that the writer declared that in his present condition he felt
bound to recognize her mother's right to deny his reque