erested in the plan because that was
what first caught Aunt Sally's fancy--Sylvia's cleverness, and this
college idea. But you wouldn't do anything about Marian, and now she's
thrown away her chances, and here's this stranger graduating with honors
and Aunt Sally going down there to see it! Aunt Sally's going to make a
companion of her, and you can't tell what will happen! I'd like to know
what you can say to your children when all Aunt Sally's money, that
should rightly go to them, goes to a girl she's picked up out of
nowhere. This is what your politics has got us into, Morton Bassett!"

The soberness to which this brought him at last satisfied her. She had
freely expressed the anxiety caused by Sylvia's first appearance on the
domestic horizon, but for a year or two, in his wife's absences in
pursuit of health, he had heard little of her apprehensions. Marian's
own disinclination for a college career had, from the beginning, seemed
to him to interpose an insurmountable barrier to parental guidance in
that direction. His wife's attitude in these new circumstances of the
return of her aunt's protegee struck him as wholly unjustified and
unreasonable.

"You're not quite yourself when you talk that way, Hallie. Professor
Kelton was one of Aunt Sally's oldest friends; old people have a habit
of going back to the friends of their youth; there's nothing strange in
it. And this being true, nothing could have been more natural than for
Aunt Sally to help the girl in her trouble, even to the extent of seeing
her graduated. It was just like Aunt Sally," he continued, warming to
his subject, "who's one of the stanchest friends anybody could have.
Aunt Sally's devoted to you and your children; it's ungenerous to her to
assume that a young woman she hardly knows is supplanting you or Marian.
This newspaper notoriety I'm getting has troubled you and I'm sorry for
it; but I can't let you entertain this delusion that your aunt's
kindness to the granddaughter of one of her old friends means that Aunt
Sally has ceased to care for you, or lost her regard for Marian and
Blackford. If you think of it seriously for a moment you'll see how
foolish it is to harbor any jealousy of Miss Garrison. Come! Cheer up
and forget it. If Aunt Sally got an inkling of this you may be sure that
_would_ displease her. You say the girl is here in the house?"

"She's not only here, but she's here to stay! She's going to intrench
herself here!"

She sent