* * * * * "Juliet, you're coming on," declared Anthony with satisfaction that evening as the two, back at the Marcy country place, strolled slowly over the lawn toward the river edge. "At this rate you'll do for a poor man's wife yourself some day. That frock you have on now--isn't that a sort of concession to the humble company you're in?" "In what way?" Juliet glanced down at the pale-green gown whose delicate skirts she was daintily lifting, and in which she looked like a flower in its calyx. She had rejoiced to exchange the dusty dress in which she had come home from town for this, which suggested coolness in each fresh fold. "Why, it strikes me as about the simplest dress I ever saw you wear. Isn't it really--well--the least expensive thing you have had in that line in some time?" The amused laugh with which this observation was greeted might have been disconcerting to anybody but Anthony Robeson, but he maintained his ground with calmness. "How many of these do you think you can furnish Mrs. Anthony with in a year?" Juliet inquired, her lips forcing themselves to soberness, but the laughter lingering in her eyes. "Several, as girlishly demure as that, I fancy," asserted the young man with confidence. But Juliet's momentary gravity broke down. "Oh, you clever boy!" she said. "I shall advise Mrs. Anthony to send you shopping for her when she needs a new frock. You will order home just what she wants without stopping to ask the price, you will be so confident that you know a cheap thing when you see it. Afterward you will pay the bill--and then the awful frown on your brow! You will have to live on bread and milk for a month to get your accounts straightened out. Oh, Tony!--No, I shouldn't do for a poor man's wife--not judging by this 'girlishly demure' gown, you poor lamb.--But, Tony," with a swift change of manner, "I do think the little house will be very charming indeed. I can hardly wait to know that the painting and papering are done, so that we can go down and get things in order. I long to arrange those fascinating new tin things in that bit of a cupboard. Tony"--turning to him solemnly--"does _she_ know how to cook?" "I think she is learning now," he assured her. "Seems to me she mentioned it in to-day's----" He fumbled in his breast-pocket and brought out a letter. Juliet stole an interested glance at it. She observed that there were three closely written sheets of the heavy linen paper, and that the handwriting was one suggestive of a pleasing individuality. Anthony, in the dim twilight, was scanning page after page in a lover's absorbed way. Juliet walked along by his side in silence. She was thinking of the face in the photograph, and wondering if Miss Eleanor Langham really loved Anthony Robeson as he deserved to be loved.