ot it were wise to go to Overton. Morning found her still
undecided. When at half-past eight o'clock she and Elfreda descended the
stairs, luggage in hand, she experienced a wild desire to refuse flatly
to go. The thought that the taxicab ordered to convey them to the
station was probably on its way to the house, brought her a remorseful
reflection that she had no right to back out at the last moment, thus
disappointing Elfreda.

"What's the matter with that taxicab, I wonder?" grumbled the latter.
Standing beside Grace on the veranda, she was engaged in peering
frowningly down the street. "When I make up my mind to go, I want to go.
If that driver loiters along the way until he makes us miss our train,
he'll hear what I have to say about it. The idea of him being so
late----"

"Oh!" A sharp cry from Grace, whose gray eyes had been pensively staring
up the street, put an abrupt end to Elfreda's remark. Coming down the
street toward the house a bicycle appeared ridden by a youngster in the
uniform of a messenger from a world-known telegraph company. Where was
he going? Was the telegraphic communication he bore for her? Grace cried
out again as she saw him stop before the gate and dismount.

Before he was fairly through the gate a lithe figure had darted down the
steps toward him. Halfway up the walk they met. "Telegram for you, Miss
Harlowe," announced the boy cheerily. "Sign here, please." Handing her a
stub of a pencil, he held the book. With a shaking hand she managed to
trace her name. As he turned and went down the walk whistling shrilly,
Grace stared at the yellow envelope, hardly daring to open it.

In the same instant she felt Elfreda Briggs' reassuring arm about her.
From the veranda the stout girl "could see" and had acted accordingly.

With a quick gasping breath Grace tore open the envelope, her trembling
fingers fumbling at its contents. Then the world seemed suddenly to
recede, leaving her alone with the unbelievable information: "Tom found.
O.K. Sends love. Coming home Tuesday. Will wire train. David."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE NOON OF GOLDEN SUMMER

It was high noon on a gloriously sunshiny Indian summer day in November;
one of the last fond concessions of Mother Nature to those who still
mourn her departed "darling of the year." In a stately church on Chapel
Hill, Golden Summer was at high noon in two hearts. To Tom Gray and
Grace Harlowe, as they knelt for a moment before the altar, preparatory