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 forge—always framed by the vast dramatic environment of that huge, thundering factory. From that day forward her respect for the young man deepened, as did her appreciation of his devotion. It seemed so much more of a compliment when George Judson came to idle with her. She was doubly grateful for it. Sometimes she had the absurd wish to reciprocate—she indulged the speculation that as George came to play with her, so she might go to work with him. The girl was a good deal mixed. Was she in love with George Judson or was she enamored by his achievements? The spell of his dominance was surely overshadowing her; and the strength of it was witnessed to by the fact that the Gilmans failed to go away for the summer.

September and late September came and the Gilmans were still at home, with, one particular day, George Judson on Montrose Boy and Fay on Princess May, cantering along a Grosse Pointe road. The zest and tang of autumn was in the air; the glory of it was painted on the trees. As they galloped, a rustic summer-house upon the lake shore came into sight, looking bleak and lonesome—so lonesome that it appealed to something in the breasts of the young people who by this time found nothing so unendurable, so worthy of sympathy as loneliness.