“I guess,” thought Carolyn May wisely, “that when two folks love each other and get angry, the love’s there just the same. Getting mad doesn’t kill it; it only makes ’em feel worse. “Poor Uncle Joe! Poor Miss Amanda! Maybe if they’d just try to _look up_ and look for brighter things, they’d get over being mad and be happy again.” She felt that she would really like to advise with somebody on this point. Aunty Rose, of course, was out of the question. She knew that people often advised with their minister when they were in trouble, but to Carolyn May Mr. Driggs did not seem to be just the person with whom to discuss a love-affair. Kindly as the minister was disposed, he lacked the magnetism and sympathy that would urge one to take him into one’s confidence in such a delicate matter. The little girl quite realised that it was delicate. She longed to help her uncle and Miss Amanda and to bring them together, but she felt, too, that whatever she did or said might do more harm than good. When Uncle Joe and Carolyn May returned from this adventurous walk, Mr. Stagg went heavily into his own room, closed the door, and even locked it. He went over to the old-fashioned walnut bureau that stood against the wall between the two windows, and stood before it for some moments in an attitude of deep reflection. Finally, he drew his bunch of keys from his pocket and opened one of the two small drawers in the heavy piece of furniture—the only locked drawer there was. It contained a miscellaneous collection of odds and ends—old school exercises, letters from his sister Hannah, an old-fashioned locket containing locks of his mother’s and of his father’s hair, broken trinkets, childish keepsakes. Indeed, such sentimental remembrances as Joseph Stagg possessed were secreted in this drawer. From beneath all this litter he drew forth a tintype picture, faded now, but clear enough to show him the features of the two individuals printed on the sensitised plate. He remembered as keenly as though it were yesterday when and how the picture had been made—at the county fair so many years ago. His own eyes looked out of the photograph proudly. They were much younger eyes than they were now. And the girl beside him in the picture! Sweet as a wild rose, Mandy Parlow’s lovely, calm countenance promised all the beauty and dignity her matured womanhood had achieved. “Mandy! Mandy!” he murmured over and over again. “Oh, Mandy! Why? Why?” He held the tintype for a long, long time in his hand, gazing on it with eyes that saw the vanished years rather than the portraits themselves. Finally, he hid the picture away again, closed and locked the drawer with a sigh, and with slow steps left the room. CHAPTER XII—CHET GORMLEY TELLS SOME NEWS It was when she came in sight of the Parlow place on Monday afternoon, she and Prince, that Carolyn May bethought her of the very best person in the world with whom to advise upon the momentous question which so troubled her.