pleasure, to Marian it was only
part of the joke. She was always late and ingeniously plausible in
excusing herself. "Mother won't bother; she wants me to have a good
time. And when papa is here he just laughs at me. Papa's just the best
ever."

Mrs. Bassett kept lamenting to Professor Kelton her husband's protracted
delay in Colorado. He was interested in a mining property there and was
waiting for the installation of new machinery, but she expected to hear
that he had left for Indiana at any time, and he was coming direct to
Waupegan for a long stay. Mrs. Owen was busy with the Waupegan farm and
with the direction of her farms elsewhere. On the veranda of her house
one might frequently hear her voice raised at the telephone as she gave
orders to the men in charge of her properties in central and southern
Indiana. Her hearing was perfect and she derived the greatest
satisfaction from telephoning. She sold stock or produce on these
distant estates with the market page of the "Courier" propped on the
telephone desk before her, and explained her transactions zestfully to
Professor Kelton and Sylvia. She communicated frequently with the
superintendent of her horse farm at Lexington about the "string" she
expected to send forth to triumph at county and state fairs. The "Annual
Stud Register" lay beside the Bible on the living-room table; and the
"Western Horseman" mingled amicably with the "Congregationalist" in the
newspaper rack.

The presence of the old professor and his granddaughter at Waupegan
continued to puzzle Mrs. Bassett. Mrs. Owen clearly admired Sylvia, and
Sylvia was a charming girl--there was no gainsaying that. At the
farmhouse a good deal had been said about Sylvia's plans for going to
college. Mrs. Owen had proudly called attention to them, to her niece's
annoyance. If Sylvia's advent marked the flowering in Mrs. Owen of some
new ideals of woman's development, Mrs. Bassett felt it to be her duty
to discover them and to train Marian along similar lines. She felt that
her husband would be displeased if anything occurred to thwart the hand
of destiny that had so clearly pointed to Marian and Blackford as the
natural beneficiaries of the estate which Mrs. Owen by due process of
nature must relinquish. In all her calculations for the future Mrs.
Owen's fortune was an integer.

Mrs. Bassett received a letter from her husband on Saturday morning in
the second week of Sylvia's stay. Its progress from the mining