Page:George Weston--The apple-tree girl.djvu/131

 For the next five minutes Mr. Ogilvie led Charlotte around the edges of her destiny, and then at last he guided her straight to what she had been all the time hoping she would find.

"Look now!" he said. "Ye see the young mon who's just starting out? It's Perry Graham; ye've heard o' him! Rich? Eh, rich is no name for it!"

"Wasn't his father in steamships or something?" asked Charlotte.

"Aye! Steamships and railroads and banks and trust companies, and nubbody knows what all! But when he died two years ago, mark ye now, he couldn't take a penny of it with him. So his boy Perry come in for it all."

"Was that his wife I met on the veranda?" asked Charlotte.

"Perry's wife? Not likely! He isna married."

"I wonder why."

"Courted to death, I'm thinking," said Mr. Ogilvie dryly.