Miss Ocky's bedroom, like all the others on the upper floor, had a small private balcony outside its tall French windows that made a pleasant place to draw a comfortable chair in the late afternoon or the cool of the evening. She was sitting there now and called to him to bring a chair for himself, but he preferred to lounge against the heavy wooden rail of the balcony.
"Well, Romeo! I expect affairs have been marching with you and Juliet or you wouldn't be hunting me up so promptly."
"See here, Aunt Ocky, I'm just tickled pink and all that, but are you sure you ought to have done it?"
"Suggested the elopement?"
"N-no, of course not. That's all right. That's lovely. We are going to take your advice and grab our happiness. What I'm fussing about is the house business."
"Yes, you'd find something to fuss about, wouldn't you! I didn't encounter any such obstinacy in Sheila, but women are much more practical than men in every respect. When I told her I owned that particular property and proposed to settle it on you jointly as a wedding-gift, she yelped with joy. It's true that after that she began to make polite gestures of remonstrance, but the yelp came first by a good, wide margin! I'm glad one of you has some common-sense."
"I'm just as grateful as I can be, but—"
"Really, Copley, you're a downright nuisance. Let me tell you something, my child. I've a great deal more money than your mother or you or any one else around here has any idea of. I've made investments in my time that would have turned a banker's hair gray, and never one of them but brought me huge returns. That property is of negligible value to me—how negligible you don't know—and yet it will be very valuable to you and Sheila as a haven of security that you can call your own. As a rich aunt, I have every legal and moral and ethical right to give it to you—and as a poor but deserving nephew, it is your cue to say 'Thank you' and accept."
"You're a brick, Aunt Ocky," said the young man soberly, for the second time that afternoon. "Sheila spoke of a check for a thousand—"
"For your honeymoon. If you don't splurge too hard, there'll be some of it left for initial expenses."