“Yes, there’s a girl!”

“The very thing!  You put her wise about it, and when I come back next week I’ll stop off again and see what I can do with her?  You can take me to call on her, you know.  Can you work it, Thomas?”

Tennelly said he’d try, and went around to see Gila on his way back to the university.

Gila listened to the story of Uncle Ramsey’s offer with bated breath and averted gaze.  She would not show Tennelly how much this meant to her.  But in her eyes there grew a determination that was not to be denied.

She planned a campaign with Tennelly, coolly, and with a light kind of glee that fooled him completely.  He saw that she was entering into the spirit of the thing and had no idea she had any other interest than to please her cousin, and achieve a kind of triumph herself in making Courtland do the thing he had vowed not to do.

But long after Tennelly had gone home she stood before her mirror, looking with dreamy eyes into the pictures her imagination drew there for her.  She saw herself the bride of Courtland after he had succeeded in the big business enterprise to which Uncle Ramsey had opened the door; she saw Washington with its domes and Capitol looming ahead of her ambition; Senators and great men bowing before her; even the White House came like a fantasy of possibility.  All this and more were hers if she played her cards aright.  Never fear!  She would play them!  Courtland must be made to accept Uncle Ramsey’s proposition!

CHAPTER XXIII

Bonnie’s letter reached Mother Marshall Wednesday afternoon while Father was off in the machine arranging for a man to do the spring plowing.  She knew it by heart before he got back, and stood at her trysting window with her cheek against the old hat, watching the sunset and thinking it over when the car came chugging contentedly down the road.

Father waved his hand boyishly as he turned in at the big gate, and Mother was out on the side door-step waiting as he came to a halt.

“Heard anything yet?” he asked, eagerly.

“Yes.  A nice, dear letter!” Mother held it up, “Hurry up and come in and I’ll read it to you.”

But Father couldn’t wait to put away the machine.  He bounded out like a four-year-old and came right in then, regardless of the fact that it was getting dark and he might run into the door-jamb putting away the machine later.

He settled down, overcoat and all, into the big chair in the kitchen to listen; and Mother put on her spectacles in such a hurry that she got them upside down and had to begin over again.

     YOU DEAR MOTHER MARSHALL! [the letter began.]
     AND DEAR FATHER MARSHALL, TOO!