"I'll be hanged if I invite her! I'll have nothing to do with her!
Maurice can come, of course; but he can't bring--"

His wife laughed, and he, too, gave a reluctant chuckle. "I suppose I've
got to?" he groaned.

"_Of course_, you've got to!" she said.

The rest of the ride back to the old stone house among its great trees,
halfway up the mountain, was silent. Mrs. Houghton was thinking what
room she would give the bride and groom--for the little room Maurice had
had in all his vacations since he became her husband's ward was not
suitable. "Edith will have to let them have her room," she thought. She
knew she could count on Edith not to make a fuss. "It's such a comfort
that Edith has sense," she ruminated aloud.

But her husband was silent; there was no more whistling for Henry
Houghton that day.




CHAPTER III


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