Marjorie’s eyes widened with amazement at the startling figures on the face of the small piece of paper he dangled before her. She was too choked with emotion for a moment to speak. Her husband’s arms closed gently around her and he drew her to him. “We did it, dear—you and I,” he whispered. “And it’s all for you. This is only a starter, too, for if you think this is big, you ought to see the contracts I’ve made for royalties.” “Hugh! Hugh!” Marjorie’s voice was a sob as she kissed him again and again. “Oh, I’m too happy to tell you! Oh, please don’t wake me out of this wonderful dream!” “Well, I, for one,” Hugh laughed as he slipped the check between his fingers, “am too used to handling these things belonging to other people to think this is a dream. There is only one thing I’m thinking of, and that is your happiness.” Marjorie drew back from him a step and looked levelly into his eyes. “Are you quite, quite sure, Hugh dear?” she begged earnestly. “Quite.” In that one word Hugh Benton put a world of meaning. “I’ve had plenty of time to think, too—and I’ve decided. You shall do with this money just exactly as you please. Whatever your plans are, they must be for the best, so I have given up all thoughts of the farm. And now that’s settled,” he said, in the old way, giving himself a little shake of renunciation. “Oh, Hugh, you _are_ a darling! And you’ll never regret it—never regret letting me have my way in this one big thing. I promise you!” For a moment the big man’s eyes were solemn. Into them came just a hint of that far-away look of wonder. But his voice was tender, if a bit grave as he spoke: “Let’s hope not, sweetheart—let’s hope not!” CHAPTER IV Christmas Eve in the new home! A Christmas tree that glittered and dazzled with its festoons of twinkling little bulbs of sapphire and gold, ruby, and orange, and violet, and pale lemon from its wide-spreading base in the center of the Bentons’ upstairs living room of their fourteen-room house on that most wonderful of driveways, Riverside, in New York—to the top-most branch that swept the high creamy ceiling jostling the fine bisque cherub that adorned that branch— And a house warming. As Marjorie Benton with a long-drawn sigh of contentment looked for the hundredth time about this one new big room with its sweeping spaces, its gay cretonnes and deep, cushion-piled wicker chairs and out through the row of French windows across the dusky blue of the Hudson to the Palisades with their twinkling starlights, she felt that life at last was worth living. All this—all—and her arms moved in a comprehensive gesture impelled by her thoughts—was hers! Her home! What more fitting than that they should have their house warming on Christmas Eve. Marjorie’s tired nerves and body that ached a bit, too, in sympathy, reminded her that she had not been able to have all this ready for Christmas Eve without effort. But how glad she was that she had done it! Glad!