Nedra | Page 3

thousand a year."
"You'll have a million or so when you're twenty-three, dear, and I'll venture to say your aunt has saved something in all these years."
"Oh, she had at least two hundred thousand dollars by the will. It has cost her nothing to live all these years as my guardian and trustee. We just had to do something with my income, you know."
"I don't see why you should let this fortune stand in the way, Grace," growled he. "Haven't I enough of my own to take its place?" Hugh Ridgeway had a million in his own right and he could well afford to be unreasonable. "The will says you are not to have your father's money until you are twenty-three years old. He evidently thought that was a discreet age. You are not to marry before you have reached that age. I've been waiting for two years, Grace, and there still remains two months--"
"One month and twenty-eight days, Hugh," she corrected.
"And in the meantime we have to stay here and face all this ante-nuptial wretchedness. It's sickening, Grace. We hate it, both of us. Don't we? I knew you'd nod your head. That's why I can't help loving you. You've got so much real good hard sense about things. If your confounded Aunt Lizzie--Elizabeth, I should say--would let us get married as we want--Hang it all, Grace, it's our affair anyhow, isn't it? Why should we permit her to dictate? It's not her wedding. She's been married twice; why can't she let well enough alone?"
"She loves me, Hugh, after all," gently.
"Well, so do I. I'm willing--not perfectly willing, of course--but reasonably so, that we should wait until the twenty-third of May, but I don't see why we should have the whole town waiting with us. Why don't you assert yourself, dear, before it is too late? Once she pulls off this announcement party, it's all off with peace of mind and contentment so far as we are concerned. Of course, she'll be enjoying it, but what of us? Are you afraid of her?"
"Don't bully me, Hugh," she pleaded. He was contrite at once and properly so. "She has lived for this time in her life. She never has been crossed. I can't--honestly I can't go to her now and--quarrel. That's what it would mean--a quarrel. She would never give in."
"Well, then, all hope is lost," he lamented. For some minutes Miss Vernon gave no response, sitting upon the arm of the chair, a perplexed pucker on her brow and a thoughtful swing to her slippered foot.
These young people had known each other since earliest childhood. They had played together with the same neighborly toys and they had grown up together with the same neighborly ideals. Both had whirled in the social swing until the sensation palled. The most exclusive set in town regarded them as among its most popular members. It was quite natural that their wedding should be the most brilliant and fashionable of the year. Their position in society demanded the sacrifice, and her aunt saw the urgent need for making it, notwithstanding the opposition of the young people themselves.
Ridgeway was a couple of years older than his affianced bride, and she was just short of twenty-three. She, an orphan since early childhood, lived with her widowed aunt--the social gourmand, to quote Hugh Ridgeway--and he made his home next door with his sister and her husband. The two brown stone houses were almost within arm's reach of each other. She had painted dainty water colors for his rooms and he had thrown thousands of roses from his windows into her boudoir. It had been a merry courtship--the courtship of modern cavalier and lady fair. Ridgeway's parents died when he was in college, and he was left to enlarge or despise a fortune that rated him as a millionaire and the best catch in town--at that time.
He was a member of the Board of Trade, but he was scarcely an operator in the strictest sense of the word. If he won he whistled, if he lost he whistled. It mattered little. Good looking, well dressed, generous to a fault, tainted but moderately with scandal, he was a man whom everybody admired, but who admired few in return--a perfectly natural and proper condition if one but stops to consider.
Miss Vernon was beautiful--of that there was no question. Tall, fair, brown-eyed and full of the life that loves, she ruled the hearts of many and--kept her hand for one. Her short, gay life had been one of luxury and ease. She had known few of its cares; its vicissitudes belonged to the charities she supported with loyal persistency. Her aunt, society mad, was her only mentor, her only guide. A path had been made for her, and she saw no other