came
to acquire you."

"It hasn't acquired anything very valuable," was the guest's modest
disclaimer, its readiness arising out of a grateful easing of strains
now that the actual face-to-face ordeal had safely passed its
introductory stage. "And you mustn't say a word against your charming
little city, Miss Farnham," he went on. "It is the friendliest, most
hospitable----"

The doctor's daughter was interrupting with an enthusiastic show of
applause.

"Come on out to dinner, both of you," she urged; and then to Griswold:
"I want you to say all those nice things to Aunt Fanny, and as many more
as you can think of. She has never admitted for a single moment that
Wahaska can be compared with any one of a dozen New Hampshire villages
she could name."

In the progress to the cozy, home-like dining-room, Griswold found
himself at once in an atmosphere of genuine comfort and refinement; the
refinement which speaks of generations of good breeding chastened and
purified by the limitations of a slender purse; in the present instance
the purse of the good little doctor whose attempted charity in the
matter of his own fee was fresh in the mind of the castaway. Griswold
had the writing craftsman's ingathering eye: he saw that the furnishings
were frugally well-worn, that the sitting-room rug was country-woven,
and that the spotless dining-room napery was soft and pliable with age.
The contrast between the Farnham home and the ornate mansion three
streets away on the lake front was strikingly apparent; as cleanly
marked as that between Margery Grierson and the sweetly serene and
conventional young person who was introducing him to her aunt across the
small oval dining-table.

So far, all was going well. Griswold, with a pleasant word for the frail
little woman opposite and a retort in kind now and then for the doctor's
raillery, still had time to be narrowly observant of the signs and
omens. But a little later, when the Swedish maid was serving the meat
course, he had his first warning shock. Through the bouillon and the
fish the doctor had borne the brunt of the table-talk, joking the guest
on his humiliating descent from Mereside and the luxuries to a country
doctor's table, and laughing at Griswold's half-hearted attempts to
decry the luxuries. What word or phrase or trick of speech it was that
served to stir the sleeping memories, Griswold could not guess; but it
became suddenly apparent that the memories were stirring.