"MY DEAR CRAWFORD,--Your manly and straightforward request for permission to address my ward, Miss Castle, has profoundly touched me. "I have considered the matter, I may say earnestly considered it. "Honor and the sacred duties of guardianship forbid that I should interfere in any way with my dear child's happiness if she desires to place it in your keeping. On the other hand, honor and decency prevent me from attempting to influence her to any decision which might prove acceptable to myself. "I can therefore only grant you the permission you desire to address my ward. The rest lies with a propitious Providence. "Cordially yours, JOHN GARCIDE. "P.S.--My sister, Miss Garcide, and Miss Castle are going to the Sagamore Club to-night. I'll take you up there whenever you can get away." To which came answer by messenger: "_Hon. John Garcide_: "MY DEAR GARCIDE,--Can't go for two weeks. My fool nephew Jim is on his vacation, and I don't know where he is prowling. Hastily yours, "JAMES J. CRAWFORD. "P. S.--There's a director's meeting at three. Come down and we'll settle all quarrels." To this the Hon. John Garcide telegraphed: "All right," and hurriedly prepared to escort his sister and Miss Castle to the mid-day express for Sagamore Hills. II Miss Castle usually rose with the robins, when there were any in the neighborhood. There were plenty on the lawn around the Sagamore Club that dewy June morning, chirping, chirking, trilling, repeating their endless arias from tree and gate-post. And through the outcry of the robins, the dry cackle of the purple grackles, and the cat-bird's whine floated earthward the melody of the golden orioles. Miss Castle, fresh from the bath, breakfasted in her own rooms with an appetite that astonished her. She was a wholesome, fresh-skinned girl, with a superb body, limbs a trifle heavy in the strict classical sense, straight-browed, blue-eyed, and very lovely and Greek. Pensively she ate her toast, tossing a few crumbs at the robins; pensively she disposed of two eggs, a trout, and all the chocolate, and looked into the pitcher for more cream. The swelling bird-music only intensified the deep, sweet country silence which brooded just beyond the lawn's wet limits; she saw the flat river tumbling in the sunlight; she saw the sky over all, its blue mystery untroubled by a cloud. "I love all that," she said, dreamily, to her maid behind her. "Never mind my hair now; I want the wind to blow it." The happy little winds of June, loitering among the lilacs, heard; and they came and blew her bright hair across her eyes, puff after puff of perfumed balm, and stirred the delicate stuff that clung to her, and she felt their caress on her bare feet. "I mean to go and wade in that river," she said to her maid. "Dress me very quickly."