Nothing happened to mar his holiday.  He ran a borrowed steam launch on to some rocks with rather heavy consequences to his aunt’s exchequer, and returned from the West Indies so late that she never had a visit from him at all that summer; but, barring these slightly unwelcome incidents, he did remarkably well, and when he returned to college in the fall he was regarded as having become, at last, a stable proposition.

“I wonder whether our boy’s comin’ home for Christmas?” Aunt Mary asked her niece, Mary, as that happy period of family reunions drew near.  Mary had come up to stay with her aunt while Lucinda went away to bury a second cousin.  Mary was very different from Arethusa, having a voice that, when raised, was something between an icicle and a steam whistle, and a temperament so much on the order of her aunt’s that neither could abide the other an hour longer than was absolutely necessary.  But Arethusa had a sprained ankle, so there was no help for existing circumstances.

“No, he isn’t,” said Mary, who had no patience at all with her brother, and showed it.  “He’s going West with the glee club.”

“With the she club!” cried poor Aunt Mary, in affright.

Mary explained.

“I don’t like the idea,” said the old lady, shaking her head.  “Somethin’ will be sure to happen.  I can feel it runnin’ up and down my bones this minute.”

“Oh, if he can get into trouble, of course, Jack will,” said Mary cheerfully.

Aunt Mary didn’t hear her, because she didn’t raise her voice particularly.  Besides, the old lady was absorbed for the nonce in the most dismal sort of prognostications.

And they all came true, too.  Something unfortunate beyond all expectations came to pass during the glee club’s visit to Chicago, and the result was that, before the new year was well out of its incubator Jack had papers in a breach-of-promise suit served on him.  He wrote Mr. Stebbins that it was all a joke, and had merely been a portion of that foam which a train of youthful spirits are apt to leave in their wake; but the girl stood solid for her rights, and, as she had never heard from her fiance since the night of the dance, her family—­who were rural, but sharp—­thought it would take at least fifteen thousand dollars to patch the crack in her heart.  If the news could have been kept from Aunt Mary until after Mr. Stebbins had looked into the matter, everything might have resulted differently.  But the Chicago lawyer who had the case took good care that the wealthy aunt knew all as quickly as possible, and it seemed as if this was the final straw under which the camel must succumb.

And Aunt Mary did appear to waver.

“Fifteen thousand dollars!” she cried, aghast.  “Heaven help us!  What next?”

It was Lucinda who was seated calmly opposite at this crisis.

“Do you suppose he really did it?” the aunt continued, after a minute of appalled consideration.