"Are we to go out with trumpets and tell everything we know, just because it is true? Is there not such a thing as egotistical truthfulness?" "It makes no difference," said Anne, despairingly. "I had to tell her." "You are stubborn, Crystal, and you see but one side of a question. But never fear; we will circumvent the dragon yet. I wonder, though, why she was so wrought up by the name Pronando? Perhaps Aunt Gretta will know." Miss Teller did not know; but one of the husky-voiced old gentlemen who kept up the "barrier, sir, against modern innovation," remembered the particulars (musty and dusty now) of Kate Vanhorn's engagement to one of the Pronandos--the wild one who ran away. He was younger than she was, a handsome fellow (yes, yes, he remembered it all now), and "she was terribly cut up about it, and went abroad immediately." Abroad--great panacea for American woes! To what continent can those who live "abroad" depart when trouble seizes _them_ in its pitiless claws? Time is not so all-erasing as we think. Old Katharine Vanhorn, at seventy, heard from the young lips of her grandniece the name which had not been mentioned in her presence for nearly half a century--the name which still had power to rouse in her heart the old bitter feeling. For John Pronando had turned from her to an uneducated common girl--a market-gardener's daughter. The proud Kate Vanhorn resented the defection instantly; she broke the bond of her betrothal, and sailed for England before Pronando realized that she was offended. This idyl of the gardener's daughter was but one of his passing amusements; and so he wrote to his black-browed goddess. But she replied that if he sought amusement of that kind during the short period of betrothal, he would seek it doubly after marriage, and _then_ it would not be so easy to sail for Europe. She considered that she had had an escape. Pronando, handsome, light-hearted, and careless, gave up his offended Juno without much heartache, and the episode of Phyllis being by this time finished, he strayed back to his Philadelphia home, to embroil himself as usual with his family, and, later, to follow out the course ordained for him by fate. Kate Vanhorn had other suitors; but the old wound never healed. "Come and spend the summer with me," said Helen. "I trust I am as agreeable as the dragon." "No; I must stay here. Even as it is, she is doing a great deal for me; I have no real claim upon her," replied Anne, trying not to give way to the loneliness that oppressed her. "Only that of being her nearest living relative, and natural heir." "I have not considered the question of inheritance," replied the island girl, proudly. "I know you have not; yet it is there. Old ladies, however, instead of natural heirs, are apt to prefer unnatural ones--cold-blooded Societies, Organizations, and the endless Heathen. But I am in earnest about the summer, Crystal: spend it with me." "You are always generous to me," said Anne, gratefully.