ne and write notes such as
he had received by the hand of Sam Warden, late last night?

"DEAR SIR." (This from Mamie, who, in the Canaanitish way, had been
wont to address him as "Norb"!)--"My father wishes me to state that
after your remark yesterday afternoon on the steps which was overheard
by my mother who happened to be standing in the hall behind you and
your BEHAVIOR to himself later on--he considers it impossible to allow
you to call any more or to speak to any member of his household.

"Yours respectfully,
"MAMIE PIKE."

Erasures and restorations bore witness to a considerable doubt in
Mamie's mind concerning "Yours respectfully," but she had finally let
it stand, evidently convinced that the plain signature, without
preface, savored of an intimacy denied by the context.

"'DEAR SIR'!" repeated Norbert, between set teeth. "'IMPOSSIBLE TO
ALLOW YOU TO CALL any more'!" These and other terms of his dismissal
recurred to him during the morning, and ever and anon he looked up from
his desk, his lips moving to the tune of those horrid phrases, and
stared out at the street. Basilisk glaring this, with no Christian
softness in it, not even when it fell upon his own grandfather, sitting
among the sages within easy eye-shot from the big window at Norbert's
elbow. However, Colonel Flitcroft was not disturbed by the gaze of his
descendant, being, in fact, quite unaware of it. The aged men were
having a busy morning.

The conclave was not what it had been. [See Arp and all his works.]
There had come, as the years went by, a few recruits; but faces were
missing: the two Tabors had gone, and Uncle Joe Davey could no longer
lay claim to the patriarchship; he had laid it down with a half-sigh
and gone his way. Eskew himself was now the oldest of the conscript
fathers, the Colonel and Squire Buckalew pressing him closely, with
Peter Bradbury no great time behind.

To-day they did not plant their feet upon the brass rail inside the
hotel windows, but courted the genial weather out-doors, and, as their
summer custom was, tilted back their chairs in the shade of the western
wall of the building.

"And who could of dreamed," Mr. Bradbury was saying, with a side-glance
of expectancy at Eskew, "that Jonas Tabor would ever turn out to have a
niece like that!"

Mr. Arp ceased to fan himself with his wide straw hat and said grimly:

"I don't see as Jonas HAS 'turned out'