and why all its old furniture, fittings, and
trappings--(brand-new ones when they couldn't be found in the pawn shops
or elsewhere)--were being gathered together within its four walls. When
anybody asked Kate--and plenty of people did--she would throw her head
back and laugh so loud and so merrily and so musically, that you would
have thought all the birds in Kennedy Square park were still welcoming
the spring. When you asked Harry he would smile and wink and perhaps
keep on whispering to Pawson or Gadgem whose eyes were glued to a list
which had its abiding place in Pawson's top drawer.

Outside of these four conspirators--yes, six--for both Todd and Jemima
were in it, only a very few were aware of what was really being done.
The colonel of course knew, and so did Harry's mother--and so did old
Alec who had to clap his hand over his mouth to keep from snickering
out loud at the breakfast table when he accidentally overheard what
was going on--an unpardonable offence--(not the listening, but the
laughing). In fact everybody in the big house at Moorlands knew, for
Alec spread it broadcast in the kitchen and cabins--everybody EXCEPT ST.
GEORGE.

Not a word reached St. George--not a syllable. No one of the house
servants would have spoiled the fun, and certainly no one of the great
folks. It was only when his visit to Moorlands was over and he had
driven into town and had walked up his own front steps, that the true
situation in all its glory and brilliancy dawned upon him.

The polished knobs, knocker, and the perfect level and whiteness of the
marble steps first caught his eye; then the door swung open and Jemima
in white apron and bandanna stood bowing to the floor, Todd straight as
a ramrod in a new livery and a grin on his face that cut it in two, with
Kate and Harry hidden behind them, suffocating from suppressed laughter.

"Why, you dear Jemima! Howdy--... Why, who the devil sent that old
table back, Todd, and the hall rack and--What!" Here he entered the
dining-room. Everything was as he remembered it in the old days. "Harry!
Kate!--Why--" then he broke down and dropped into a chair, his eyes
still roaming around the room taking in every object, even the loving
cup, which Mr. Kennedy had made a personal point of buying back from
the French secretary, who was gracious enough to part with it when
he learned the story of its enforced sale--each and every one of
them--ready to spring forward from its place to welco