Nedra | Page 3

is why he left
me in her care until I reached the age of discretion. She was not always
like this. Father's money has wrought the change. Aunty was as poor as
a church mouse until father's death put her at the head of my
household--it was mine, Hugh, even if I was only six years old. You
know we could live pretty well on forty 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