A most odd look flashed across the young man's keen face. "You'll understand one day," he said, addressing Julia directly. "You'll understand, and you'll sympathize with me. A fellow likes a wife who knows how many beans make five. A fool has no charm for any man, except he's too big a black-guard to want his wife to find him out. As regards frocks, and the spending of money, and the business side of life, a man does like his wife to be altogether practical." "That implies another side of the picture," said Julia. "Yes, it does. And the other side of the picture is me and those that may come after me; and if a man is a straight, clean wholesome man, he likes his wife to be altogether sentimental as regards him, and those that come after him. You will understand me some day, Julia, my dear." Maudie's face dropped instantly, and something like the flash of diamonds came into her eyes. She heaved a great sigh, a tremulous sigh, not one of pain; and hearing it, Harry Marksby caught hold of her hand and tried to pull her ring off. And Maudie began to laugh with those tell-tale little twinkling drops bedewing her eyelashes, and Regina looked on, much as an elephant might regard her offspring at play, with a look which only required a little encouragement for her to put it into words. And if that look had been put into words, they would have been but three--"_My noble boy!_" "Ah, well," said Julia, now busy a few yards away, "you are not half good enough for our Maudie, Harry. You are taking away the biggest part of my life, and of course you are very cock o' whoop about it; but if you're not good to her, Harry, you will have to reckon with _me_." "All right, I'll be there when you want me," Harry replied. "Then we may take it, Mrs. Whittaker," he continued, with a change of tone, "that the end of July will be the date to work to?" "I suppose so," said Regina, "if her father has no objection." "I detest long engagements myself," said Alfred Whittaker. "I never could see the good of them. I was engaged much too long to you, my dear." "It was the happiest time of my life--" Regina began, somewhat wistfully. "Oh, don't say that," her husband interrupted, "don't say that. It might have been happier than any time that went before--I know it was for me--but at best it is only a foreshadowing, it's only like water to wine, like moonlight to sunlight. There, there, children," he said, flinging out his hands with a deprecating gesture, "there, there, your old dad doesn't often get so sentimental as that. The end of July let it be, and after that we shall all go away and breathe freely."