he going away of a bridal party!" said she with exaggerated
gayety, and with a little spitefulness, I thought. "Has any one any
rice?"

"All aboard!" said Corcoran; and the joyful and triumphant party, with
their outward intimacy and their inward warfare of passions and desires,
rolled on toward "Mystery Number Two," which was duly christened
"Cornish," and celebrated in champagne furnished by its godfather.

"Don't you ever drink champagne?" said Cornish, as Josie declined to
partake.

"Never," said she.

"What, _never_?" he went on, Pinaforically.

"My God!" thought I, "the assurance of the man!" And the palm-encircled
alcove at Auriccio's, as it was wont so often to do, came across my
vision, and shut out everything but the Psyche face in its ruddy halo,
speeding by me into the street, and the vexed young man in the faultless
attire slowly following.

Mystery Number Three was "Antonia," a lovely little place in embryo;
"Barslow" came next, followed by "Giddings" and "Tolliver." We were
tired of it when we reached "Hinckley," platted on a farm owned by
Antonia's father, and where we ceased to perform the ceremony of
unveiling. It was a memorable trip, ending with sunset and home. Captain
Tolliver assisted General Lattimore to alight from the train, and they
went arm in arm up to the old General's home.

That night, according to his wont, Jim came to smoke with me in the late
evening. "Let's take a car," said he, "and go up and have a look at the
houses."

These were our new mansions up in Lynhurst Park Addition, now in process
of erection. In the moonlight we could see them dimly, and at a little
distance they looked like masses of ruins--the second childhood of
houses. A stranger could have seen, from the polished columns and the
piles of carved stone, that they were to be expensive and probably
beautiful structures.

"What do you think of the General in the role of Cassandra?" asked Jim,
as we sat in the skeleton room which was to be his library.

"It struck me," said I, "as a particularly artistic bit of croaking!"

"The Captain says frequently," said Jim, his cigar glowing like a
variable star, "that opportunity knocks once. The General, I'm afraid,
knocks all the time. But if it should turn out that he's right about
the--the--dervish-dance ... it would be ... to put it mildly ... a
horse on us, Al, wouldn't it?"

I had no answer to this fanciful speech, and made none. Instead, I told
him of Giddin