Edith and her fourteen-year-old neighbor, Johnny Bennett, had climbed into the old black-heart cherry tree--(Johnny always conceded that Edith was a good climber--"for a girl.") But when they saw Lion, tugging up the road, Edith, who was economical with social amenities, told her guest to go home. "I don't want you any longer," she said; "father and mother are coming!" And with that she rushed around to the stable door, just in time to meet the returning travelers, and ask a dozen questions--the first: "_Did_ you get a letter from Maurice?" But when her father threw the reins down on Lion's back, and said, briefly, "Can't you unharness him yourself, Buster?" she stuck out her tongue, opened her eyes wide, and said nothing except, "Yes, father." Then she proceeded, with astonishing speed, to put Lion into his stall, run the buggy into the carriage house, and slam the stable door, after which she tore up to her mother's room. "Mother! Something has bothered father!" "Well, yes," Mrs. Houghton said; "a little. Maurice is married." Edith's lips fell apart; "Maurice? _Married_? Who to? Did she wear a veil? I don't see why father minds." Mrs. Houghton, standing in front of her mirror, said, dryly: "There are things more important than veils, when it comes to getting married. In the first place, they eloped--" "Oh, how lovely! I am going to elope when I get married!" "I hope you won't have such bad taste. Of course they ought not to have got married that way. But the thing that bothers your father, is that the lady Maurice has married is--is older than he." "How much older?" Edith demanded; "a year?" "I don't just know. Probably twenty years older." Edith was silent, rapidly adding up nineteen and twenty; then she gasped, "_Thirty-nine_!" "Well, about that; and father is sorry, because Maurice can't go back to college. He will have to go into business." Edith saw no cause for regret in this. "Guess he's glad not to have to learn things! But why weren't we invited to the wedding? I always meant to be Maurice's bridesmaid." Mrs. Houghton said she didn't know. Edith was silent, for a whole minute. Then she said, soberly: "I suppose father's sorry 'cause she'll die so soon, she's so old? And then Maurice will feel awfully. Poor Maurice! Well, I'll live with him, and comfort him." "My dear, I'm fifty!" Mrs. Houghton said, much amused. "Oh, well, _you_--" Edith demurred; "that's different. You're my mother, and you--" She paused; "I never thought of you being old, or dying, _ever_. And yet I suppose you are rather old?" She pondered. "I suppose some day you'll die? Mother!--promise me you won't!" she said, quaveringly. "Edith, don't be a goose!" Mrs. Houghton said, laughing--but she turned and kissed the rosy, anxious face, "Maurice's wife isn't old at all. She's quite young. It's only that he is so much younger."