ed?" She glanced sideways rather sharply at
him.

"My coming here is; I'm really on my way to Bar Harbor. The Van Ostends
are off on Tuesday with a large party and I promised to go with them."

"So Alice wrote me the other day. It's the first letter I have had from
her. She says she is coming here on her way home in October, that she's
'just crazy' to see Flamsted Quarries--but I can read between the lines
even if my eyes are old." She smiled significantly.

Champney felt that an answering smile was the safe thing in the
circumstances. He wondered how much Aunt Meda knew from the Van Ostends.
That she was astute in business matters was no guaranty that she would
prove far-sighted in matrimonial affairs.

"I've known Alice so long that she's gotten into the habit of taking me
for granted--not that I object," he added with a glance in the direction
of the boat house. Mrs. Champney, whom nothing escaped, noticed it.

"I should hope not," she said emphatically. "I may as well tell you,
Champney, that Mr. Van Ostend has not hesitated to write me of your
continued attentions to Alice and your frankness with him in regard to
the outcome of this. So far as I see, his only objection could be on
account of her extreme youth--I congratulate you." She spoke with great
apparent sincerity.

"Thank you, Aunt Meda," he said quietly; "your congratulations are
premature, and the subject so far as Alice and I are concerned is taboo
for three years--at Mr. Van Ostend's special request."

"Quite right--a girl doesn't know her own mind before she is
twenty-five."

"Faith, I know one who knows her own mind on all subjects at
twenty!"--he laughed heartily as if at some amusing remembrance--"and
that's Aileen; by the way, where is she, Aunt Meda?"

"She was going up to Mrs. Caukins'. I suppose she is there now--why?"

"Because I want to talk about her, and I don't want her to come in on us
suddenly."

"What about Aileen?" She spoke indifferently.

"About her voice; you've never been willing, I understand, to have it
cultivated?"

"What if I haven't?"

"That's just the 'what', Aunt Meda," he said pleasantly but earnestly;
"I've heard her singing a good many times, and I've never heard her that
I didn't wish some one would be generous enough to such talent to pay
for cultivating it."

"Do you know why I haven't been willing?"

"No, I don't--and I'd like to know."

"Because, if I had, she would have been on the stage before n