Mr. Pennington’s good-by was different.

“I don’t wonder you like it down here, Margaret Elizabeth—­this room, you know,” he said.

As they drove homeward Mrs. Pennington was engaged in mentally reconstructing affairs.  “Of course,” she heard herself saying, “it was a disappointment to me, but romantic girls are not to be controlled by common-sense aunts, and really it might be worse.”  And she remarked aloud:  “The fact that he is a nephew of General Waite means something.”

“That’s so,” assented her husband.  “Something like half a million.  Old Knight is determined to hand it all over.”  He smiled to himself, then added:  “He came to see me—­the young man, I mean.  I liked him.  He suggested Rob a little without resembling him.  Very gentlemanly; nice eyes.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

In which the Fairy Godmother Society is again mentioned, among other things.

“But it is really embarrassing when I had made up my mind to marry a poor Candy Man to have it turn out so.  I rather liked defying common sense,” said Margaret Elizabeth.

The Candy Man had made a hurried journey to Chicago, and was back before the rain was over, and while it was still cold enough for a fire, so that his old dream of sometime sitting by the Little Red Chimney’s hearth was coming true.  Margaret Elizabeth in the blue dress, by request, though she declared it wasn’t fit to be seen, occupied the ottoman, her elbows on her knees, the firelight playing in her bright hair.

“It is the way it happens in fairy-tales,” urged the Candy Man.  “And I really couldn’t help it.”

“Of course you are right,” she agreed.  “As Virginia’s story runs, ’He turned into a prince, and because Violetta had been true to him through thick and thin, he made her a princess.’  Anyhow, Candy Man, I’m glad I chose you before your good fortune came.”

“It was an extremely venturesome thing to do, Girl of All Others, as I have told you before, though immensely flattering to me.  I have to take the money, there is no way out of it.  I believe it would break our Miser’s heart if I refused.  Do you know what he was proposing to do before he found the book?”

“What?” asked Margaret Elizabeth.

“To adopt me.  You see we had come to be pretty good friends last winter, and I think he suspected from the start that I had rather lofty aspirations for a Candy Man.  In a Little Red Chimney direction—­you understand?”

“Perfectly—­go on.”

“Well, he saw us in the park——­”

“And his suspicions were confirmed, I suppose,” put in Margaret Elizabeth, coolly.

“Exactly.  And knowing from what I had told him previously that I had my fortune to seek, it occurred to him that as the channel he had been hoping for had been closed, the next best thing would be to make it possible for two young persons to——­”