"You have said that before, my dear. Your Aunt Claudia wasn't born in the ark——"
"But, Grandfather, I didn't mean that."
"It sounded like it. I shall write to her to stay as long as she can. We can get along perfectly without her."
"Of course," said Becky slowly. She had a feeling that, at all costs, she ought to call Aunt Claudia back.
For Dalton, after that first ride in the rain from Pavilion Hill, had speeded his wooing. He had swept Becky along on a rushing tide. He had courted the Judge, and the Judge had pressed upon him invitation after invitation. Day and night the big motor had flashed up to Huntersfield, bringing Dalton to some tryst with Becky, or carrying her forth to some gay adventure. Her world was rose-colored. She had not dreamed of life like this. She seemed to have drunk of some new wine, which lighted her eyes and flamed in her cheeks. Her beauty shone with an almost transcendent quality. As the dove's plumage takes on in the spring an added luster, so did the bronze of Becky's hair seem to burn with a brighter sheen.
Yet the Judge noticed nothing.
"Did you ask him to dine with us?" he had de
manded, when Dalton had called Becky up on the morning of the receipt of Aunt Claudia's letter.
"No, Grandfather."
"Then I'll do it," and he had gone to the telephone, and had urged his hospitality.