"Now go slow, Margaret Elizabeth," cautioned her uncle. "At heart you are a confounded little socialist, but take my advice and keep it to yourself." He was thinking of what she had said to him only the day before: "You see, Uncle Gerry, you can't have everything. You have to choose. And while I like bigness and richness, I like Little Red Chimneys and what they stand for, best. I want to be on speaking terms with both ends, you see." "It is odd," Mr. Pennington went on, "the tricks heredity plays, and that this young man and Augustus McAllister should both hark back to a common ancestor for their general characteristics of build and feature. I was struck with the resemblance, myself." "It was what first attracted me," owned Margaret Elizabeth demurely. The name of Augustus still had painful associations for Mrs. Pennington. She rose. "Really we must be going," she said. At some future time she felt she might be able to meet Mr. Reynolds or Waite, or whatever his name was, with equanimity, but now she was thankful to hear he had gone back to Chicago for some papers. She received Margaret Elizabeth's farewell embrace languidly. "Since there is such weight of authority in your favour, and matters have developed so strangely, there is nothing for me to say. I dislike mystery, and prefer to have things go on regularly and according to precedent. It is your welfare I have at heart." Mr. Pennington's good-by was different. "I don't wonder you like it down here, Margaret Elizabeth--this room, you know," he said. As they drove homeward Mrs. Pennington was engaged in mentally reconstructing affairs. "Of course," she heard herself saying, "it was a disappointment to me, but romantic girls are not to be controlled by common-sense aunts, and really it might be worse." And she remarked aloud: "The fact that he is a nephew of General Waite means something." "That's so," assented her husband. "Something like half a million. Old Knight is determined to hand it all over." He smiled to himself, then added: "He came to see me--the young man, I mean. I liked him. He suggested Rob a little without resembling him. Very gentlemanly; nice eyes." CHAPTER FIFTEEN _In which the Fairy Godmother Society is again mentioned, among other things_. "But it is really embarrassing when I had made up my mind to marry a poor Candy Man to have it turn out so. I rather liked defying common sense," said Margaret Elizabeth. The Candy Man had made a hurried journey to Chicago, and was back before the rain was over, and while it was still cold enough for a fire, so that his old dream of sometime sitting by the Little Red Chimney's hearth was coming true. Margaret Elizabeth in the blue dress, by request, though she declared it wasn't fit to be seen, occupied the ottoman, her elbows on her knees, the firelight playing in her bright hair. "It is the way it happens in fairy-tales," urged the Candy Man. "And I really couldn't help it."