right!"

"Darn curious," he muttered to himself, "that boy should get caught just
at this time, and not with some o' those girls in Marion. Well, it's
none o' my funeral," he ended, with a sigh; for it had stirred him to
the bottom of his sunny nature, after all. A dozen times, as he lay
there beside his equally sleepless companion, he started to say
something more in deprecation of the step, but each time stifled the
opening word into a groan.

It would not be true to say that love had come to Albert Lohr as a
relaxing influence, but it had changed the direction of his energies so
radically as to make his whole life seem weaker and lower. As long as
his love-dreams went out toward a vague and ideal woman, supposedly
higher and grander than himself, he was spurred on to face the terrible
sheer escarpment of social eminence; but when he met, by accident, the
actual woman who was to inspire his future efforts, the difficulties he
faced took on solid reality. His aspirations fell to the earth, their
wings clipped, and became, perforce, submissive beasts at the plough.
The force that moved so much of his thought was transformed into other
energy.

The table was very gay at dinner next day. Maud was standing at the
highest point of her girlhood dreams. Her flushed cheeks and shining
eyes made her seem almost a child, and Hartley wondered at her, and
relented a little in the face of such happiness.

"They're gay as larks now," thought Hartley to himself, as he joined in
the laughter; "but that won't help 'em any ten years from now."

He could hardly speak next day as he shook hands at the station with his
friend.

"Good-by, ol' man; I hope it'll come out all right, but I'm afraid--But
there! I promised not to say anything about it. Good-by till we meet in
Congress," he ended, in a resolute attempt to conceal his dismay.

"Can't you come to the wedding, Jim? We've decided on June. You see,
they need a man around the house, so we--You'll come, won't you, old
fellow? And don't mind my being a little crusty last night."

"Oh yes; I'll come," Jim said, in a tone which concealed a desire to
utter one more protest, but to himself he said:

"That ends him! He's jumped into a hole and pulled the hole in after
him. A man can't marry a family like that at his age, and pull out of
it. He _may_, but I doubt it. Well, as I remarked before, it's none o'
my funeral so long as _he's_ satisfied."

But he said it with a painful lump