Julia found Miss Toland upstairs, hastily packing.  “Well, runaway!” said the older lady.  And then, in explanation, “I think we’d best go, Julia, for my brother and Teddy have just got home, and there’ll have to be a great family council to-night.”

“Would you stay if I went?” Julia asked, coming close to her.

“No, you muggins!  I’d pack you off in a moment if that was what I meant!  No, I’m glad enough to get out of it!” Miss Toland stood up.  “What’s Jim Studdiford been saying to you to give you cheeks like that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Julia whispered, with a tremulous laugh.  And for the first time she went into Miss Toland’s open arms, and hid her face, and for the first time they kissed each other.

“Anything settled?” the older woman presently asked in great satisfaction.

“Not—­quite!” Julia said.

“Not quite!  Well, that’s right; there’s no need of hurry.  Oh, law me!  I’ve seen this coming,” Miss Toland assured her; “he all but told me himself a week ago!  Well, well, well!  And it only goes to show, Julia,” she added, shaking a skirt before she rolled it into a ball and laid it in her suitcase, “that if you give a girl an occupation, she’s better off, she’s more useful, and it doesn’t keep her fate from finding her out!  You laugh, because you’ve heard me say this before, but it’s true!”

Julia had laughed indeed; her heart was singing.  She would have laughed at anything to-day.

Four days later, at four o’clock in the afternoon, Doctor Studdiford called at The Alexander, and Miss Page joined him, in street attire, at once.  They walked away to the car together, in a street suddenly flooded with golden sunshine.

“Did you tell your mother I was coming, dear?”

“Oh, Jim, of course!  I never would dare take them unawares!”

“And did you tell her that you were going to be my adored and beautiful little wife in a few months?”

“In a few months—­hear the man!  In a few years!  No, but I gave them to understand that you were my ‘friend.’  I didn’t mention that you are a multi-millionaire and a genius on leg bones—­”

“Julia, my poor girl, if you think you are marrying a multi-millionaire, disabuse your mind, dear child!  Aren’t women mercenary, though!  Here I thought I—­No, but seriously, darling, why shouldn’t your mother have the satisfaction of knowing that your future is pretty safe?”

“Well, that’s hard to say, Jim.  But I think you will like her better if she takes it for granted that you are just—­well, say just the sort of doctor we might have called in to the settlement house, establishing a practice, but quite able to marry.  I feel,” said Julia, finding her words with a little difficulty, “that my mother might hurt my feelings—­by doubting my motives, otherwise—­ and if she hurt my feelings she would anger you, wouldn’t she?”

“She certainly would!” Jim smiled, but the look he gave his plucky little companion was far removed from mirth.