ose.

Then Madam Fulton found her strength.

"Sit down, Electra," she said. "Why, child, you don't realize--I don't
know what you'd do if you did--you don't realize I put that in there by
the merest impulse."

"Of course," said Electra kindly. "I understand that. You never dreamed
of its having any bearing on things as they are now, they have gone on
in this way so long. But it would be shocking to me, shocking, to seem
to own this house when it is yours--ethically."

"Don't say ethically. I can't stand it. There, Electra! you're a good
girl. I know that. But you're conscience gone mad. You've read George
Eliot till you're not comfortable unless you're renouncing something.
Take things a little more lightly. You can if you give your mind to it.
Now this--this is nothing but a joke. You have my word for it."

"It isn't a joke," said Electra firmly, "when grandfather could write
that over his own signature and send it to a well-known person. How did
it come back into your hands, grandmother?"

But Madam Fulton looked at her, wondering what asylum Electra would put
her in, if she knew the truth. She essayed a miserable gayety.

"Very well, Electra," she smiled, "call it so, if you like, but we won't
say any more about it. I can't have houses made over to me. I may totter
into the grave to-morrow."

Electra's eyes went involuntarily to the garden where Billy Stark was
placidly walking up and down, smoking his cigar and stopping now and
then to inspect a flower. The old lady interpreted the look.

"I know, I know," she said wickedly; "but that's nothing to do with it.
Besides, if I marry Billy Stark, I shall go to London to live. What do I
want of houses? Let things be as they are, Electra. You keep the house
in your hands and let me visit you, just as I do now. It's all one."

Electra spoke with an unmoved firmness. Her face had the clarity of a
great and fixed resolve.

"The house is yours; not legally, I own, but--"

"Don't you say ethically again, Electra," said the old lady. "I told you
I couldn't bear it."

She sank back still further into her chair and glared. At last Madam
Fulton was afraid of her own emotions. Such amazement possessed her at
the foolish irony of things, such desire of laughter, that she dared not
yield lest her frail body could not bear the storm. Man's laughter, she
realized, shout upon shout of robust roaring, was not too heroic for
this folly. Electra was speaking:--

"I insist u