eerfully doffed, and some jackets put on, as the
buggy swept up the hill to the pretty new cottage, with its green blinds
and white veranda, on the crest.

Yet I am afraid that Prosper was not perfectly happy, even in the
triumphant consummation of his plans. Mrs. Pottinger's sudden and
business-like acquiescence in it, and her singular lapse from her
genteel precision, were gratifying but startling to his ingenuousness.
And although from the moment she accepted the situation she was
fertile in resources and full of precaution against any possibility of
detection, he saw, with some uneasiness, that its control had passed out
of his hands.

"You say your comrades know nothing of your family history?" she had
said to him on the journey thither. "What are you going to tell them?"

"Nothin', 'cept your bein' my old mother," said Prosper hopelessly.

"That's not enough, my son." (Another embarrassment to Prosper was her
easy grasp of the maternal epithets.) "Now listen! You were born just
six months after your father, Captain Riggs (formerly Pottinger) sailed
on his first voyage. You remember very little of him, of course, as he
was away so much."

"Hadn't I better know suthin about his looks?" said Prosper
submissively.

"A tall dark man, that's enough," responded Mrs. Pottinger sharply.

"Hadn't he better favor me?" said Prosper, with his small cunning
recognizing the fact that he himself was a decided blond.

"Ain't at all necessary," said the widow firmly. "You were always wild
and ungovernable," she continued, "and ran away from school to join some
Western emigration. That accounts for the difference of our styles."

"But," continued Prosper, "I oughter remember suthin about our old
times--runnin' arrants for you, and bringin' in the wood o' frosty
mornin's, and you givin' me hot doughnuts," suggested Prosper dubiously.

"Nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Pottinger promptly. "We lived in the
city, with plenty of servants. Just remember, Prosper dear, your mother
wasn't THAT low-down country style."

Glad to be relieved from further invention, Prosper was, nevertheless,
somewhat concerned at this shattering of the ideal mother in the
very camp that had sung her praises. But he could only trust to her
recognizing the situation with her usual sagacity, of which he stood in
respectful awe.

Joe Wynbrook and Cyrus Brewster had, as older members of the camp,
purposely lingered near the new house to offer any assis