“I suppose you thought I’d eloped. I promise you now that I won’t; I won’t get married until you and daddy say I can. I’ll wait _forever_ if you say so. I can’t bear to hurt any one’s feelings. But I’ll never be happy here at home any more, and I’ll never care for anybody here. I may act as if I cared, but I won’t, really! I’ll only care for Francis—as he cares for me.” The wind from some far source seemed to shake her with its ruthless power. “You think I’m so young—you make me younger than I really am so that I don’t know how to tell you what I mean—to tell you so that you’ll understand. When I’m with Francis he doesn’t need to speak, he doesn’t even need to be _near_ me; but I’m just so happy!” Her voice had changed to the exquisite cadence of love. “It’s my _own_ life! And whether I’m glad or sorry, I want to spend it with him. I want to be with him anyway—I want to be with him if I _die_ for it!” She put her hand on her heart with a quick, passionate gesture, her ice-blue eyes had in them that look which is as old as the world, as deep as life. She stepped past the weeping sisters to throw herself on her knees by her mother, to hide her bright head upon her mother’s breast, to reach her young arms up to clasp around her mother’s neck as she whispered: “Oh, mother, mother, _you ought to know_!” * * * * * “It certainly was a beautiful wedding!” Little Miss Ward was calling once more at the Malisons; her voice was earnestly kind. “How lovely Miss Annette and Miss Elinor looked. I never saw girls keep their looks so well! And Miss Elinor engaged, too, at _last_! Every one was so surprised at Miss Tina’s getting married so soon. Mr. Fanshawe seemed very happy, I shouldn’t wonder if there really was more to him than people think; he shook my hand so—_cordially_, it’s a little lame yet. And as for the bride”—Miss Ward lowered her voice tenderly—“well, Mrs. Grandison said, when she saw that child’s sweet, young face going up the aisle, there was something so pathetic about it that she just broke down and gave up and cried, when she thought of all that might be before her. Have you ever thought what a lottery life is?” “Yes,” said Mrs. Malison. She had indeed! For good or for evil the portion of the youngest was Tina’s. She had had, as always, her own way. Polly Townsend’s Rebellion Polly Townsend’s Rebellion The goings forth and the comings back of the head of a suburban household are the pendulum by which all the rest of the time swings. Polly Townsend, in a short white duck skirt, with a cheerful red bow in her light hair, was putting the finishing touches to the dinner-table in the now permanent absence of the “girl,” and listening for the returning footstep of her husband with more than her usual sense of expectation, which lately had been braced to divine what that footstep might imply as to the day’s success or non-success.