short frocks. It's simply appalling. Everything I say and do and look is criticized from the point of view of 1850. Can't you imagine what will be thought of my sneaking out every afternoon to talk to a dangerous young man who has only just left Yale and lives among horses?" 

 That was too much for Martin. His laugh echoed among the trees. 

 But Joan didn't make it a duet. "It wouldn't be so funny to you if you stood in my shoes, Martin," she said. "If I had gone to Grandmother and asked her if I might meet you,—and just think of my having to do that,—she would have been utterly scandalized. Now, having done this perfectly dreadful thing without permission, I shall be hauled up on two charges,—deceit and unbecoming behavior,—and I shall be punished." 

 The boy wheeled around in amazement. "You don't mean that?" 

 "Of course I mean it. Haven't I told you over and over again that these two dear but irritating old people look down at me from their awful pile of years and only see me as a child?" 

 "But what will they do to you?" 

 Joan shrugged her shoulders. "Anything they like. I'm completely at their mercy. For Mother's sake I try to be patient and put up with it all. It's the only home I've got, and when you're dependent and haven't a cent to bless yourself with, you can't pack up and telephone for a cab and get out, can you? But it can't go on forever. Some day I shall answer back, and sparks will fly, and I shall borrow money from the coachman, who's my only friend, and go to Alice Palgrave and ask her to put me up until Mother comes back. I'm a queer case, Martin—that's the truth of it. In a book the other day I came across an exact description of myself. I could have laughed if it hadn't hit me so hard. It said: 'She was a super-modern in an early-Victorian frame, a pint of champagne in a little old cut-glass bottle, a gnome engine attached to a coach and pair.'" She picked up a stone and flung it down the hill. 

 One eager wild thought rushed through Martin's brain. It had made his blood race several times before, but he had thrown it aside because, during all their talks and walks, Joan had never once looked at him with anything but the eyes of a sister. As his wife he could free her, lift her out of her anomalous atmosphere and take her to the city to which her face was always turned. But he lacked the courage to speak and continued to hope that some day, by some miracle, she might become less superlatively 

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