"You give me courage," the old lady was saying. "Why, you put some life into me! I don't know but I've got the strength to fly with Billy, after all." Electra rose. She could not listen. But at the door she turned, a new thought burning in her. "Grandmother," she said irrepressibly, "if you would make your will--" "Bless you, I haven't sixpence," said the old lady gayly, "except the tainted money from the book." "That's what I mean." Electra came back and stood beside her. She breathed an honest fervor. "That money, grandmother,--it is tainted, as you say,--if you would leave that to the Brotherhood--" Madam Fulton was on her feet, with an amazing swiftness. "My money!" she cried. Then a gleam of humor irradiated her face, and she ended affectionately, "My own tainted money? Why, I'm devoted to it. And I tell you this, Electra: if there's one scrap of it left when you inherit, if you give it to your brotherhoods, I'll haunt you. As I'm a living woman, you shan't have a chance. I'll make my will and Billy Stark shall help me, and I'll leave it to that pretty girl, and she shall buy ribbons with it. And--My heavens! but there's Billy Stark now." He was coming up the walk, and she flew to meet him in an ingenuous happiness, half dramatic fervor to plague Electra, who, walking with dignity, went out the other way. Madam Fulton was laughing, at Electra, at life itself. "Billy," said she, "I'd rather see you than all the heavenly hosts." Billy took off his hat and wiped his forehead. "I found I'd got things pretty well in order," he explained. "I thought you wouldn't mind my coming sooner." "Mind! I'm enchanted. Come along in and have cold drinks and things. Bless me, Billy! how it does set me up to see you." She led the way into the dining-room, and when no one answered the bell, on into the kitchen for exploration in the icebox. She tiptoed about, her pretty skirt caught under one arm, her high heels clicking. The pink came into her cheeks. She had the spirit which is of no age. Then they sat down together at the dining-table in the shaded calm, and while Billy drank, she leaned her elbows on the table and, with the ice clinking in her glass, drank and made merry. She might have been sixteen and in a French café. Her spirits were seething, and she feared no morrow. "I never can let you go in the world, Billy," she said, out of her gay candor. He was instant with his gallant remedy. "Come with me, then!" "Sometimes"--she paused and watched him--"sometimes I almost think I will."