long and the short of it is, mother, I shall not do it," he decisively declared. "I shall simply run over to Lee and take up my quarters in some unpretentious boarding-house, where I can come down to my meals and lounge about in a _négligé_ shirt, and read my papers and smoke my cigars swinging in a hammock, without being disturbed by girls."In high dudgeon his lady-mother and sister had sailed off to Europe, and they lived all their after-lives to rue it, and to bemoan the fact that they had not stayed at home to watch over the young man, and to guard the golden prize from the band of women who were on the lookout for just such an opportunity.

Jay Gardiner found just such an ideal boarding-house as he was looking for. Every woman who came to the village with a marriageable daughter tried to secure board at that boarding-house, but signally failed. They never dreamed that the handsome, debonair young millionaire paid the good landlady an exorbitant price to keep women out. Good Widow Smith did her duty faithfully.

When Mrs. Pendleton, of New York, heard of the great attraction at Lee, Massachusetts, she decided that that was the place where she and her two daughters, Lou and Sally, should spend the summer. "If either of you girls come home engaged to this millionaire," Mrs. Pendleton had declared, "I shall consider it the greatest achievement of my life. True, we live in a fine mansion on Fifth Avenue, and we are supposed to be very wealthy; but not one of our dear five hundred friends has discovered that the house we live in is merely rented, nor that your father's business is mortgaged to the full extent. We will have a hard time to pull through, and keep up appearances, until you two are married off."

Mrs. Pendleton established herself at the Summerset House, with her two daughters. Every Saturday afternoon the pompous old broker went out to Lee, to make a show for the girls.

"The next question is," said Mrs. Pendleton, after the trunks were unpacked, and the pretty clothes hung up in the various closets, "which one of you two will Mr. Gardiner prefer?"

"Me!" said jolly Sally, with a mischievous laugh, complacently gazing at the lovely face reflected in the mirror.

"It might be as well to wait until after he is introduced to us before you answer that question," said Lou. "But how are we to meet him?"

"Your father will attend to that part of the business," said Mrs. Pendleton. "He understands what he has to do, and will 

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