ed. A new element would be infused into our home life with his
advent, and I confidently believed that the widow's society would be
vastly more tolerable when he was among us. George had been so long in
Paris that he had become a veritable Parisian. That he would bring
along with him a large amount of Paris sunshine and vivacity to enliven
the atmosphere of our little circle, I felt certain.

"Is he coming to stay?" I asked.

"He don't know. He says he never makes any plans for six months ahead.
It will depend upon circumstances."

"Well, that's Parisian. I'm very glad he's coming, and I hope
circumstances will keep him here. Isn't old Dr. Jones pretty nearly
dead? Seems to me George could take his practice."

"Now, Charlie!"

"It's all right, puss; doctors must die as well as their patients."

I broached the subject to mother-in-law at the supper-table,
and--_mirabile dictu!_--she agreed with me that we must keep George with
us when we got him.

In November George arrived. He didn't telegraph from New York, but came
right on by a night train, and, walking into the house while we were at
breakfast, took us by surprise.

Mrs. Pinkerton taken by surprise was a funny phenomenon, and I'm afraid
propriety received a pretty smart blow when she threw her napkin into a
plate of buckwheat cakes, dropped her eye-glasses, and rushed to meet
the long-lost prodigal.

As for George, he brought such a gale into the house with him--there are
plenty of them on the Atlantic in November--that everything seemed
metamorphosed. He laughed and shouted, and hugged first one of us and
then another, and finally sat down and ate breakfast enough for six
Frenchmen, every minute ripping out some wicked little French oath and
winking at his mother with the utmost complacency. Never since I had
become an inmate of the cottage had we enjoyed a meal so much as that
one. There was an _abandon_, an _insouciance_, an _esprit_, a
_je-ne-sais-quoi_ about this young frog-eater that thoroughly carried
away the whole party, including even Mrs. Pinkerton.

When George had eaten everything he could find on the table, he lighted
a cigarette,--right there in the dining-room, too, and under his
mother's eyes,--and we had a good, long, jolly talk together, Bessie
sitting between us and feasting her eyes on her brother's comeliness.
He certainly was handsome.

"I have no plans," he said, "except to loaf here awhile and wait for an
opening."

"A French