"Why, Naomi," she said, a little apologetically, coming into the room, "I didn't hear the piano and-"

"And you wondered what disaster could have happened," the girl replied, flushed and amused as she replaced her weapon upon the wall. "I was only giving Cousin Sigmund a lesson with the foils, Mamma."

"You know your father comes on the early train today, Naomi; he'll be disappointed if you're not at the station to meet him, dear."

"And a perfect right he'd have to be disappointed, and bewildered, too. When have I ever failed him?"

And she quitted the room, making, as she left it, a pass at Sigmund with an imaginary weapon, and laughing gaily as she did so.

Mrs. Mobry went to the piano and gathered together the sheets of music that Naomi had left there in some disorder, and arranged them upon the stand. She had the appearance of seeking occupation; a house full of servants left her little or none of a manual sort, for wealth was one of the things which John Mobry had persistently wanted, long ago.

Mrs. Mobry was past fifty, with her hair, that was turning gray, carefully parted and brushed smooth down upon her temples. When she seated herself and began to rock gently, she drew the cape which she wore closely about her thin shoulders.

"Don't you find it chill, Sigmund," she said, "with that window open? I dare say not, though; young blood is warm."

But Sigmund went and closed the window, making no boast that his veins were scintillant. He only said:

"You're right, Aunt Editha; this early spring air is treacherous."

"I wanted to speak with you a moment alone, dear," she commenced at once, coughing uneasily behind her hand. "It may be, and I trust it is, wholly unnecessary, this caution; but it's best to be open, so far as we can be, in this world. And, of course, when young people are thrown together-"

Sigmund, to quote his thoughts, literally, wondered what his aunt was driving at.

"I only want to say- as you perhaps are not aware of it- that it's our intention, and Naomi's, too, that she shall never marry. As you will be with us all summer I thought it best to acquaint you at once with such little family arrangements, so that we may all feel comfortable and avoid unpleasant consequences." Mrs. Mobry smiled feebly as she said this, and smoothed down the hair on her temples with her long thin hands.

"Has Naomi made you such a promise?" Sigmund asked, thinking it a great pity if she had.

"Oh, there's been no promise, but it has been always understood. I've impressed upon her since she was a little child that she is to remain with me always. It looks selfish- I know it looks selfish; your Uncle John even thinks so, though he has never opposed my wish."

"I see rather a natural instinct in this wish of yours than cold selfishness, Aunt Editha. Something you can't overcome, perhaps. I remember now hearing how fearfully cut up you were two years ago when Edward married."

Mrs. Mobry grew a shade paler, and her voice trembled when she said:

"I can't pardon Edward. It was treacherous, marrying in that way, knowing how I opposed it. It was unfortunate that your uncle should have sent him to take charge of the business in Middleburg. That marriage could not have come about if he had been here at my side, where his place was."

"But, Aunt Editha, it isn't such a calamity after all. He has married a charming woman, and seems perfectly happy. If you would consent to visit him, and were to see his content with your bodily eyes I think you would be reconciled to his coup d'etat."

Sigmund thought his aunt Editha rather stupidly set in her ideas. But as he had already recognized the possibility of falling in love with his cousin, Naomi, he was not ill-pleased that Mrs. Mobry had so considerately warned him. If he walked into the fire now it would be with open eyes.

Sigmund was the son of Mr. Mobry's sister; a student of medicine, twenty-two years of age, a little run down and overworked, and hoping for recuperation amid these Western hills. He had visited his uncle's family often as a child, when he and his cousin Edward- two years his senior- had been friends. But his absence this time had lasted four years. He had left Naomi an awkward, boisterous girl of fourteen. When he returned he found that she had undergone a seeming re-creation.

He himself was a good-looking young blond fellow, full of hope and belief in his future; though he tried hard to cultivate an interesting cynicism, which he could never succeed in making anyone believe in.

III

Had Mrs. Mobry's intention been that Sigmund should fall in love with her daughter she could not have designed a plan more Machiavellian than the one she employed. But her only thought had been a caution against marriage. Thus there was no cause to grumble, for she had done her work well and surely.

This caution served Sigmund as his only shield- poor fool; all others, he set aside at once. It was more than a shield. It was a license, drawn, signed, stamped and delivered to his conscience, which permitted him to live at Naomi's side with his young nature all unbridled to wound itself after the manner of young unbridled natures.

They lived such a joyous life during those spring and summer days, and did so many things that were delightful! For must it not have been a delight to rise when the morning was yet gray, and to tramp- high-booted both of them- through the brush of the hillside, crisp and silvered with dew? To silently wait with ready rifle for the young covey to start with sudden whirr from the fence corners? To watch the east begin to fire and set the wet earth sparkling?

But perhaps they liked it better, or certainly as well, when they sat side by side in Naomi's wagonette and went jogging to town, three miles away, behind the fat, lazy pony who always wanted to stop and drink when they crossed the shallow ford of the Meramec, where the water ran like liquid crystal over the shining pebbles beneath. He always wanted to stop, too, and rest under the branches of the big walnut tree that marked the limit of the Mobry's field. It was a whim of Naomi's to let her pony do what he wanted to, and as often as not he wanted to nibble the grass that grew tender along the edges of the road.

It is no wonder then that their little jogs to town consumed an incredible length of time. Yet what had they to do with time but to waste it? And this they did from morning till night. Sometimes upon the river that twines like a silver ribbon through the green slopes of Southern Missouri, seated in Naomi's slender boat, they floated in midstream when the stars or moon were over them. They skirted the banks, gliding under the shade of hanging willows when the sun grew hot and lurid, as it did often when the summer days came.