demanded.

The young man surveyed her calmly. "Because I--we disapprove of
marriage," he said.

Luella turned a brick-red; her mouth opened vaguely. Though she
spoke not a word, he answered her amazed face.

"The conditions of marriage at the present day," he stated loftily,
"are not such as to lead me--to lead us to suppose that as an
institution it has accomplished its purpose. Where it is not merely
legalized--"

"Oh, Frank!" the girl moaned softly, putting her little hand over
his opened lips. He kissed it gently, but removed it.

"To say nothing of the absolute misery you can see all about you as
a result of a chain that ought long ago to have been broken, or
better still, never--"

"And before that child, too!" Luella burst out. "Caroline, you get
right up and come home. I never heard anything like it in my life.
Come this minute, now!"

Caroline rose unwillingly; she thought Luella unnecessarily severe.

"As to that," young Mr. Wortley announced composedly, "we differ
again. The sooner these matters are discussed frankly before
children, the sooner we shall have fewer unhappy men and women.
There is nothing whatever in my intentions or Miss--or Dorothy's,
to shock or affront the youngest child. I have no children myself,
but--"

"Humph!" Luella sniffed furiously, "I sh'd hope not!"

"--but _if_ I had," he pursued evenly, "I should teach them
precisely--"

"Look here," Luella interrupted roughly, "look me in the face, both
of you!"

They turned their eyes full on her, the boy's dilated to
fanaticism, glowing with obstinacy; the girl's, wet and pleading,
miserable, but full of love. Luella, with narrowed lids, bored into
those clear young eyes: no shadow of deceit, no hint of shuffling or
double-dealing could withstand that relentless scrutiny.

Slowly her face softened, her eyebrows relaxed, her hold on the
twisted apron loosened.

"I guess we better talk this over," she said decisively, closing the
door and seating herself squarely in the chair nearest it. "How old
did you say you was, Mr. Wortley?"

The forensic expression faded helplessly from the boy's face. He
clutched at it, but it failed him, and with the air of a pupil
addressing his teacher, he replied: "I didn't say, but I'm
twenty-one."

Luella nodded. "An' you can't be a day over nineteen, can you?" she
demanded of the girl. The braided chestnut head shook sadly.

"I thought not. I s'pose you've found out that your views ain't