course not, or you would have wired me."

It was not at all like the bank president to ask so many questions all
at once.

Auntie Sue looked around the private office curiously, then smilingly
back to the face of the financier.

"Do you know, Homer," she said with her chuckling little laugh,
"I--I--am almost afraid of you in here. Everything is so grand and
rich-looking; and there were so many men out there who tried to tell me
you would not see me. I--I am glad I didn't know it would be like this,
or I fear I never could have found the courage to come."

Homer T. Ward laughed, and then--rather full-waisted as he was--went
down on one knee at the arm of her chair so as to bring his face level
with her eyes.

"Look at me, Auntie Sue," he said; "look straight through me, just as
you used to do years and years ago, and tell me what you see."

And the dear old lady, with one thin soft hand on his heavy shoulder,
answered, as she looked: "Why, I see a rather naughty boy, whom I ought
to spank for throwing spitballs at the old schoolroom ceiling," she
retorted. "And I am not a bit afraid to do it either. So sit right over
there, sir, and listen to me."

They laughed together then; and if Auntie Sue wiped her eyes as the
schoolboy obediently took his seat in the big chair at the banker's
desk, Homer T. Ward's eyes were not without a suspicious moisture.