married."

"It was your grandmother's," Aunt Jane replied after long thought, "and,
as you say, I ain't usin' it. I don't know but what you might as well
have it as anybody else. I lay out to buy me a new haircloth parlour
suit with that two hundred dollars of James's--he give the minister the
hull four dollars over and above that--and--yes, you can have it," she
concluded.

Ruth kissed her, with real feeling. "Thank you so much, Aunty. It will be
lovely to have something that was my grandmother's."

When she went back to Winfield, he was absorbed in a calculation he was
making on the back of an envelope.

"You're not to use your eyes," she said warningly, "and, oh Carl! It was
my grandmother's and she's given us every bit of it, and you're to stay
to supper!"

"Must be in a fine humour," he observed. "I'm ever so glad. Come here,
darling, you don't know how I've missed you."

"I've been earning furniture," she said, settling down beside him.
"People earn what they get from Aunty--I won't say that, though, because
it's mean."

"Tell me about this remarkable furniture. What is it, and how much of it
is destined to glorify our humble cottage?"

"It's all ours," she returned serenely, "but I don't know just how
much there is. I didn't look at it closely, you know, because I never
expected to have any of it. Let's see--there's a heavy dresser, and a
large, round table, with claw feet--that's our dining-table, and there's
a bed, just like those in the windows in town, when it's done over, and
there's a big old-fashioned sofa, and a spinning-wheel--"

"Are you going to spin?"

"Hush, don't interrupt. There are five chairs--dining-room chairs, and
two small tables, and a card table with a leaf that you can stand up
against the wall, and two lovely rockers, and I don't know what else."

"That's a fairly complete inventory, considering that you 'didn't look
at it closely.' What a little humbug you are!"

"You like humbugs, don't you?"

"Some, not all."

There was a long silence, and then Ruth moved away from him. "Tell me
about everything," she said. "Think of all the years I haven't known
you!"

"There's nothing to tell, dear. Are you going to conduct an excavation
into my 'past?'"

"Indeed, I'm not! The present is enough for me, and I'll attend to your
future myself."

"There's not much to be ashamed of, Ruth," he said, soberly. "I've
always had the woman I should marry in my mind--'the not impossible
s