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kind of a thing to go through, with this thought of her own unknown family in the back of her mind. Suddenly she knew she could not go anywhere till that matter was settled! She had to know just where she stood before ever she went among people again. She lifted her eyes to Evan’s kindly, pleasant face and tried to decline his offer in a gracious way.
    “Oh, that is dear of your mother, Evan!” she said. “I do appreciate it a lot, and some other time I’d love to come, but just now I don’t feel I could.”
    He settled down comfortably to combat her, just as if he had expected to have to do so.
    “Now, you know that isn’t a bit sensible, Marjorie. There’s no point in stretching out your grief. You’ve got to go on living, and you know perfectly well your mother would want you to be happy.”
    “Yes,” said Marjorie sweetly. “I know, and I’m not stretching out my grief. Mother and I talked it over together, and she told me all that. I understand, and I don’t intend to mope. But somehow I don’t feel I can stand gaiety just yet. I’ve had two other invitations but I’m declining them both—”
    Marjorie hadn’t been quite sure till this minute what she was going to do, but now it was all very clear in her mind.
    “But, Marge, it’s only our house. It’s almost like home, you know. It isn’t as if we were going to have a lot of strangers either. There will be just the cousins and aunts and uncles. You’ve always known them, and Mother intends to plan it all very quietly. I’m sure there won’t be anything to upset you. If you find it’s too much I’ll take you off in the car to some quiet place for a few hours and rest you up, and you really must see it will be better for you than moping around here in this lonely house.”
    “You’re very kind!” said Marjorie with a troubled gaze, but more and more certain that she wasn’t going to accept. Then suddenly she lifted frank eyes to his.
    “You see, Evan, there’s something I have to do first before I can go anywhere and begin life again.”
    “Something you have to do? What do you mean?” He turned puzzled, dominating eyes upon her.
    Marjorie hesitated, then spoke decisively. After all, he was her good friend, why not confide in him? Perhaps he could advise her.
    “You know I’m an adopted child, don’t you? You’ve always known that, haven’t you, Evan?”
    A startled, almost cautious look came into his eyes.
    “Why—yes, of course, but what has that got to do with it? You don’t mean, Marjorie, that after all these years your mother has cut you out of the property she promised you? I heard her say myself that she was leaving you everything. You don’t mean that she tied it up or anything?”
    Marjorie laughed and drew a deep breath.
    “Oh, no, nothing like that, Evan. I’m very comfortably fixed, of course.”
    A relieved look came into the young man’s handsome eyes.
    “Well, then, why worry?” he said playfully, and his hand stole across and dropped familiarly, warmly, down upon hers.
    They were sitting on the deep couch, Marjorie at one end, Evan near the other, but now he leaned across with a comforting manner and looked into her eyes.
    She was quite serious as she answered him.
    “It’s not money worries,” she said. “It’s something entirely different. It’s my family. My
birth
family, I mean.”
    “Your birth family?” He looked at her, startled. “Have they dared turn up and annoy you?”
    “Oh, no!” she said quickly. “Of course not!”
    “Why ‘of course not’? They likely would, if they knew you were alone and unprotected. A girl with a fortune is never quite safe alone. You ought not to stay a night alone here!”
    “Why, I’m not alone!” said Marjorie. “The servants would protect me with their lives if there were need. I’m quite safe. But it’s absurd, Evan, for you to talk that way about my birth family! Don’t, please! It hurts me!”
    “
Hurts
you?” he said, looking at her