The Rose-Garden Husband

ievingly at the sedate elderly couple who had made her this wild proposition. She caught her breath. But catching her breath did

uch a proposition as this, especially to a young lady who has no parent or gua

r. It seemed more like an interesting story she was unravelling sentence by sentence. The long, softly lighted old room, with its Stuarts

could find some conscientious woman, a lady, and a person to whom what she could offer wo

why does she want me married to him? And how could you or she be sure

swered the last two

bond that would obligate her to a certain duty toward her husband. As to why we selected you, my dear, my husband and I ha

d Phyllis, dimpling. "That's ju

lushed, with a del

te to poor Angela's plan. We feel sure you could be trusted to take the place. Mr. De Guenther has asked his friend Mr. Johnston, the head of the library, such things as we needed

Phyllis Braithwaite a little pi

s wild scheme that would make her life better than it was as the tired, i

es as to that. You would have a couple or more months of absolute freedom every year, control of much of your own time, ample leisure to enjoy it. You would give only your chances of actual marriage for perhaps five years, for poor Allan cannot live longer than that a

grave little bow, and he and

She had not even been specially in love, that she could remember, since she was grown up. She did not feel much, now, as if she ever would be. All that she had to give up in taking this offer was her freedom, such as it was-and those fluttering perhapses that whisper such pleasant promises when you are young. But, then, she wouldn't be young so very much longer. Should she-she put it to herself crudely-should she wait long, hard, closed-in years in the faith that she would learn to be absolutely contented, or that some man she could love would come to the cheap boarding-house, or the little church she attended occasionally when she was not too tired, fall in

inquired the Destinies with their tradition

nther began giving her details about the money, and the leisure time, and the business terms of the contract generally. She listened attentively.

ays did when there were big

heard last week of a woman who left money alo

d Mrs. De Guenther, beaming. "

squared her straight young sho

do for the situation!" she sai

a fairy-story," she said to herself that night as she wound her alarm.