our patient, or a
show place you've stopped to let us look at?"

"My patient's in the house up there. Drive on, Aleck, please. They'll be
expecting us at the back of the house, where the long porches are, and
where they're probably having afternoon tea at this minute." He glanced
at his watch. "Happy time to arrive, isn't it?"

Ellen found herself experiencing a most extraordinary sensation of
excitement as the car rounded the drive and approached the porch, where
she could see a number of people gathered. The place was not more
imposing than many with which she was familiar, and if it had been the
home of one of the world's greatest there would have been nothing
disconcerting to her in the prospect. But something in her husband's
manner assured her that he had been preparing a surprise for them all,
and she had no means of guessing what it might be. The little hasty
sketch of lilac trees against a spring sky, though she had seen it, had
naturally made no such impression upon her as upon King, and she did
not even recall it now.

The car rolled quietly up to the porch steps, and immediately a tall
figure sprang down them. "It's Gardner Coolidge, my old college friend,
Len," Burns said in his wife's ear. "Remember him?" The afternoon
sunlight shone upon the smooth, dark hair and thin, aristocratic face of
a man who spoke eagerly, his quick glance sweeping the occupants of the
car.

"Mrs. King! This is a great pleasure, I assure you--a great pleasure.
Mrs. Burns--we are delighted. And this is your son, Mrs. King--welcome
to you, my dear sir! Red, no need to say we're glad to see you back. Let
me help you, Mrs. King. Don't tell me you wouldn't have known me; that
would be a blow. Alicia"--he turned to the graceful figure approaching
across the porch to meet the elder lady of the party as she came up the
steps upon the arm of the man who had taken her from the car--"Mrs.
King, this is my wife."

Red Pepper Burns, laughing and shaking hands warmly with Alicia
Coolidge, was watching Mrs. Alexander King as, after the first look of
bewilderment, she cried out softly with pleasure at recognizing the son
of an old friend.

"But it has all been kept secret from me," she was saying. "I had no
possible idea of where we were coming, and I am sure my son had not."
She turned to that son, but she could not get his attention, for the
reason that his astonished gaze was fastened upon a person who had at
that moment appeared in th