hops on one of these shed-as-you-enter
surface cars, and rides up to the hotel. I'd been holdin' down one of the
velvet chairs in the ladies' parlor for near half an hour, and was
wonderin' if Cornelia had run out of black headed pins, or what, when I
pipes off a giddy specimen in wistaria costume that drifts in and begins
squintin' around like she was huntin' for some one. Next thing I knew
she'd spotted me and was sailin' right over.

"Oh, there you are!" she gurgles, holdin' out her hand.

"Excuse me, lady," says I, sidesteppin' behind the chair, "but ain't you
tryin' to tag the wrong party?"

"Why," says she, lettin' out a chuckle, "don't you know me, Mr. McCabe?"

"Not yet," says I; "but it looks like I would if----Great snakes!"

And honest, you could hardly have covered my face cavity with a waffle
iron when I drops to the fact that it's Cousin Cornelia. In place of the
dismal female I'd been expectin', here's a chirky party in vivid regalia
that shows class in every line. Oh, it's a happy days uniform, all right,
from the wide brimmed gauze lid with the long heliotrope feather trailin'
over one side, to the lavender kid pumps.

"Gee!" I gasps. "The round is on me, Miss Cornelia. But I wa'n't lookin'
for you in--in----"

"I know," says she. "This is the first time I've worn colors for years,
and I feel so odd. I hope I don't look too----"

"You look all to the skookum," says I.

It wa'n't any jolly, either. There never was any real sharp angles to
Cornelia, and now I come to reckon up I couldn't place her as more'n
twenty-six or twenty-seven at the outside. So why shouldn't she show up
fairly well in a Gibson model?

"It's so good of you to come to our rescue," says she. "Miss Stover will
be down presently. Now, where shall we go to dinner?"

Well, I see in a minute I've got to revise my plans; so I begins namin'
over some of the swell grillrooms and cafes.

"Oh, we have been to most of those, all by ourselves," says Cornelia.
"What we would like to see to-night is some real--well, a place where we
couldn't go alone, out somewhere--an automobile resort, for instance."

"Whe-e-ew!" says I through my front teeth. "Say, Miss Cornie, but you are
gettin' out of the bereft class for fair! I guess it's comin' to you,
though. Now jest let me get an idea of how far you want to go."

"Why," says she, shruggin' her shoulders,--"how is it you put such
things?--the limit, I suppose?"

"Honest?" says I. "Then