“Have you ever heard of the Prospect House in Ridgefield, Mass.?” Fanny asked, and Roy answered briskly, “I guess I have. It was there father met my mother, twenty-three years ago. I had heard piles about it and the funny little landlord before I went there this last summer with father and mother. We had a fancy to drive through the country, stopping where night overtook us, and the second day we reached the Prospect House, which looks rather old fashioned beside the fine hotel which has been built on the Common. I wanted to stop there but nothing could keep father from the Prospect House, and I was glad we went there. I wish you could see the landlord, Uncle Zach they call him. He is an old man with such a fat body and short legs and round good natured face, and what do you think he called his wife?” Fanny could not guess, and Roy continued, “Dot, and Dotty, and I’ll bet she weighs two hundred, and is nearer eighty than seventy. Think of calling her Dotty! There is love of the right sort, isn’t it? But I shall love you just as well when you weigh three hundred and are ninety, as I do now.” His hand had gotten quite under the cushion and had one of Fanny’s. “You hurt,” she said, as he gave it a hard squeeze. “And you must not hold it either. You don’t know at all who I am. Did they mention Mark Hilton at the Prospect House?” “Why, yes, I think they did,” Roy said slowly, as if trying to recall something which had slipped his memory. “Father and mother and Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were talking and I heard that name I am sure. When I joined them they stopped suddenly, as if they did not care to continue the conversation. Who was he, anyway? Some scamp?” “He was my father,” Fanny said defiantly. “Your father! Great Scott, why didn’t you say so?” Roy exclaimed. “You needn’t swear if he was my father,” Fanny answered, beginning to cry. The second cushion had followed the first to the floor by this time and Roy had his arm around Fanny, to whom he said, “Don’t cry. Great Scott isn’t a swear. I only said it because I must say something. What of Mark Hilton?” “He was clerk at the Prospect House, and none the worse for that. The Vanderbilts and Astors and a lot more people did not have as good a beginning,” Fanny said, and Roy replied, “Of course not. Very few of us can boast of high-toned beginnings. My great-grandfather was a carpenter.” “Pho!” Fanny said, with a laugh which had not much mirth in it. “I can beat that on a grandmother when I get to her. I don’t think a carpenter at all bad.” “Neither do I,” Roy said, “and I don’t care if your father was a tinker. Tell me about him.” “You see, it was this way,” Fanny began. “My mother was at the hotel the same summer with your father and mother. Mr. Hilton was very handsome and very tall and very nice. I know he was nice,” and she emphasized her words with sundry nods of her head as a warning that she was not to be disputed.