as ominous of
a coming storm. In point of fact, Mr. Port was waiting only until
he should fully regain his strength in order to try conclusions with
Dorothy once and for all--and he was most highly resolved that in the
impending battle royal he should not suffer defeat. So far, he had gone
down in each encounter with his spirited antagonist because the tactics
employed against him were of an unfamiliar sort. But he was beginning to
get the hang of these tactics now; and he also had got what in fighting
parlance would have been styled his second wind. As he thought of the
wrongs which had been heaped upon him, rage filled his breast; and the
strong determination slowly shaped itself within him that to the finesse
of the enemy he would oppose a solid front of brute force.

Astuteness was not the least marked of Miss Lee's many charming
characteristics, and although her guardian gave no outward sign of his
belligerent intentions, she felt an inward conviction that a decisive
trial of strength between them was at hand. Five or six years earlier
she had engaged in a trial of this nature with her mother, and had
emerged from it victorious. In that case, feminine weakness had yielded
to feminine strength. But now the gloomy thought assailed her that her
uncle, while closely resembling her mother in the matter of his liver,
had in the depths of his torpid nature a substratum of brutal masculine
resolution against which, should it fairly be set in array, she might
battle in vain. And the upshot of her meditations was the conviction
that her only chance of success lay in avoiding a battle by a radical
change of base.

An easy way, as she perceived, to effect such a change of base was to
marry Van Rensselaer Livingstone. Indeed, his proposal, a couple of days
after the yacht voyage ended, came so opportunely that she almost
was surprised into accepting it out of hand. But Dorothy was too well
balanced a young person to do anything hastily, even to get herself
out of a tight place; and while she held Livingstone's proposal under
advisement--as a line of retreat kept open for use in case of urgent
necessity--she welcomed it less for the possibilities of a safer
position that it offered than for those which it suggested to her
fertile mind.

Marriage, she decided, was the only way by which she could score a final
victory over her uncle, and at the same time spike his guns; but it
did not necessarily follow that her marriage must b