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 "You?" The little red queen drew herself up, yet she was flattered at the compliment. She gave him, after the first look of hauteur, an even more confiding smile. "I like you, boy, you're awfully nice," and she reached out and took his hand once more as sympathetically breaking the force of what she had to communicate. "But—the man who marries girls like me must be rich. Vurry—vurry rich—or they must do something wonderful, boy—something that makes everybody talk about them. Then we marry them."

"I'm going to be rich and do something wonderful too," declared George Judson with a set of his sturdy shoulders. He had made up his mind to that at once.

For some time the houses past which the goat cart trundled had been getting bigger, and now there appeared in the near distance one red stone house which had a whole quarter of a block to itself. It was huge and solid looking, with a white portico in front and wide lawns unfenced and noble trees all around.

"That's where I live—there!" she announced impressively.

"Gosh!" breathed George, deeply awed. "It's a grand home, isn't it?"

But, at the moment, this home showed signs of being much less at ease within itself than its heavy and self-satisfied architecture might suggest. The vast front door was open. A baldish