don't actually force him to go out with me--and I spend
mine down in the pleasanter quarters. I have the Liscombes and the
Latimers in very often, but he never comes down if he can avoid it. They
understand he's eccentric, and we let it go at that."

She spoke with the air of being a most kindly and forbearing wife.
I followed her downstairs, pondering over points of view.
Eccentric--because he preferred wide fires and elbow-room and
outlook to Camellia's crowded and over-decorated rooms below, and
his books to Mrs. Liscombe's music and Mr. Harry Hodgson's "readings."
I felt that I knew Mrs. Liscombe and Mr. Hodgson and the rest quite
without having seen them.

* * * * *

I found, the next evening, that my imagination had not gone far astray.
Camellia's friends were certainly quite as "gay" as she had pictured
them, and gorgeously dressed. I felt, as I attempted to maintain my part
among them, like a country mouse suddenly precipitated into the society
of a company of town-bred squirrels.

Mrs. Liscombe sang for us. I could not make out what it was she sang,
being unfamiliar with the music and unable to understand the words. She
possessed a voice of some beauty, but was evidently determined to be
classed among the sopranos who are able to soar highest, and when she
took certain notes I experienced a peculiar and most disagreeable
sensation in the back of my neck.

"I wonder if we couldn't bring in a stepladder for her," murmured the
Skeptic in my ear. "It gives me a pang to see a woman, alone and
unassisted, attempt to reach something several feet above her head!"

Mr. Hodgson recited for us with great fervour. He fought a battle on the
drawing-room floor, fought and bled and died, all in a harrowing tenor
voice. He was slender and pale, and it seemed a pity that he should have
to suffer so much with so many stalwart men at hand. From the first
moment, when he drew his sword and leaped into the fray, our sympathies
were with him, although he personified a doughty man of battles, and led
ten thousand lusty followers. There were moments when one could not
quite forget the swinging coat-tails of his evening attire, but on the
whole he was an interesting study, and I was much diverted.

"Dear little fellow!"--it was the Skeptic again. "How came they to let
him go to war--and he so young and tender?"

I exchanged observations with Mr. Hodgson after his final reading; I
can hardly say t