“Perhaps he’s wheedled you into thinking a yeller-haired high-kicker would make the ideel daughter-in-law for the next Governor of the Mountain State. But his golden eloquence hasn’t caught _me_ yet. So, as long as there’s one sane member of the Conover family——” “Oh, Caleb, how can you treat your own child——” “Yes!” snorted Caleb, “my own children have a right to expect a fine line of treatment from me, haven’t they? Blanche and Jerry, both. What is it Ibid says about ‘A serpent’s tooth and a thankless——’” “That was Shakespeare,” contradicted Mrs. Conover, with the tact that was her chief charm. “And you’ve got it all wrong. There’s no such person as——” “I tell you it was Ibid,” growled Caleb, always tender on the subject of his learning. “It says so in the ‘Famous Quotation’ book. Maybe you can look down on my education. But I guess I can stand pat all right on the things I _have_ learned. And——” The butler entered with a card, which he carried to Caleb. After one glance at the pasteboard Caleb crushed it in his fingers and threw it to the floor. “Turn her out!” he ordered. “Why, who is it?” squeaked his wife in high excitement. “It’s some woman for Jerry. Gaines brought me the card by mis——” “For me?” cried Gerald, jumping up, his face aflame. “Why, it—it can’t——” “Yes, it can. And it is, or rather it _was_, for I’ve sent her away. Maybe you forget I made you promise——” “Stand aside!” spake a dramatic contralto voice from beyond the portières, “I have a right here.” The curtains were thrust apart, revealing the protesting, discomfited butler; and, pushing past him, a tall, slender young woman, quietly but prettily dressed, pompadoured of hair, and very, _very_ determined of aspect. “Good Lord!” grunted Caleb under his breath, “she ain’t even a blonde. I thought they all——” But she was in the library itself, and facing the amazed master of the house. Gerald, at first sight of her, had sprung forward and now grasped the newcomer ardently by both hands and drew her to him. “I was sure,” murmured the intruder in that same throaty contralto, rich, yet insensibly conveying a vague impression of latent vulgarity, “I was _sure_ your man was mistaken, and that you couldn’t have meant to turn me away without a word when I had come so far to see my precious truant boy. _Did_ you? We women, Mrs. Conover,” she went on, eyes and voice claiming alliance of the meek-faced little nonentity who shrank behind Anice Lanier, “we women understand how hard it is to keep away from the man who has taught us to love him. _Don’t_ we? Men never can _quite_ realize that. Not even my Gerald, or he wouldn’t have stayed away so long or made me stay away from him. _Would_ he?” “It was Dad,” broke in Gerald. “I told you that in my first letter, darling. He won’t stand for our marriage, and——”