owled Yate.

"I expect Homer in the flesh was a bit flabby," said Harry,
contemplatively rubbing the knob of his stick over an immaculate chin.
At this moment the door was opened, and they were invited to follow
straight through the house to where the conservatory gave on to a rose
garden; Miss Silver and her mother were there reading, said the maid.

From the top of the steps Yate caught a pretty glimpse of Sabbath
repose. The lawn and the standard roses were formal enough, but there
were acacia trees on the left, and, under them, grouped artistically, an
Indian drugget, a tea table, and long basket chairs. In one of these
Carol lay curled up like the letter S, with head deep in a frilled
cushion. Harry, from his point of vantage, whispered, "She reminds me of
a lettuce." The soft green of a shimmering tea gown tipped with
transparencies of lemon-tinted gauze was gratifying to parched eyes in
over-ripe midsummer.

Yate frowned. He was not on friendly enough terms to appreciate a joke
which might be overheard.

Harry proceeded to shout a jovial self-announcement, upon which she
lifted her eyes from what seemed an absorbing theme.

Yate's quick glance, in the moment of introduction, observed the book
was upside down. Her thoughts had evidently been fixed on something more
intensely earnest still. Rosser, perhaps, he thought to himself--he had
already begun to detest Rosser.

Her face brightened when she greeted them, and she commenced talking
with almost excited volubility.

"I'm so glad you've come."

Harry's expression widened to a grin; his mouth was one of those
expansive ones which are born grinning. It sealed for him the reputation
of good nature.

"Sunday in the suburbs is such a dull thing, one feels quite
asphyxiated, even to the marrow," she said, addressing herself to Harry,
and veering weathercock-wise in the direction of Tyndall.

"I thought ladies saved that day for gossip and scandal?" said Yate,
dropping, after the fashion of male monsters, into the smallest of
chairs indicated by her. Harry had appropriated a footstool, which
brought his grasshopper outlines against the green of her gown, and was
already resuming his customary pastime of sucking the knob of his
walking stick, a survival of babyhood which was doubtless responsible
for the awning-like upper lip wherein lurked his impressive joviality.

"Oh, so they do, but at this season of the year all the women wear their
old bonnets and th