OTHER plans were being made for young Mr. Peter Parker of Pasadena at almost the same moment. Cousin Mary-Lou Tenafee had coaxed her Cousin ’Gene Carey to allow himself to be driven out to Beulah-land for the last day of her house-party, because it would be a nice change for the dear old thing, and because she wished to confer with him upon a pleasing matter.
She herself mixed a toddy for him in her husband’s study while her guests were dressing for dinner, and watched him fondly while he reveled in it.
“By gad, Mary-Lou,” he said appreciatively, “I swear Bob Lee couldn’t have done better himself! My dear child, I wonder if you realize what it means to have such an excellent cellar in these—these——”
“Dry or dangerous days?” the girl widow smiled. “I think I do, Cousin ’Gene. It certainly insures popularity.”
The old gentleman got to his feet with some difficulty, for the paralyzed side was still cumbersome. “Your popularity would be insured on a sea of lemonade, my dear,” he toasted her gallantly.
“But isn’t it nice I don’t have to prove it for a long time to come!” The grandfather’s clock which had belonged to a Bob Lee Tenafee three generations earlier struck seven and she came swiftly to her point. “You know, Cousin ’Gene, I’ve been thinking a lot about Nancy, lately.”
“You have, my dear?”
“About her future, I mean. Now, it isn’t because I don’t think you’re going to be fit as a fiddle again in no time, and live to be a hundred!” she met the sudden change in his expression merrily. “It is just because she’s such a beauty, and all the men are mad about her, and she’s so sort of—innocent and trusting and tender—girls aren’t like that, nowadays, Cousin ’Gene——”
“She is the image of her sainted mother,” he declared mistily.
“Yes, I know, and loving her as I do, I want to see her find just the finest and best and most splendid fellow—and I feel that we—that you and I must, well, sort of arrange things, Cousin ’Gene. You see, Nancy is so sort of trusting, she could easily be—be—well, sort of romantically carried away—” Mary-Lou Tenafee hadn’t the faintest intention of disclosing the little scene at the mill which had given rise to these apprehensions unless it was absolutely necessary to startle the old gentleman into action, but before her mental vision as she spoke was the sight of Nancy Carey’s hazel gaze upon Luke Manders, her plump, soft hand white against his dark sleeve as she pleaded with him not to let her father stay down more than an hour on his first visit to the Altonia. “What I have in my mind is this, Cousin ’Gene: wouldn’t Peter Parker and our Nancy make a pretty pair?”