e seven years old, came running to her mother's
side.

"There's a man by the well!"

"I saw him first," chimed in the smaller child. "Didn't I see him
first, Eva?"

The rambling party had returned from the woodland to the cleared
tract, in the midst of which the White House of Blennerhassett
formerly stood. The mansion, never occupied after the ill-starred
family left it, was destroyed by fire a few years before the time of
the picnic excursion. Near the low foundation walls of blackened stone
stood the wooden curb surrounding the mouth of a deep well. The old
windlass, below which a leaky bucket still swung, was kept in repair
by unknown hands. Upon looking for the man whom Eva had discovered,
Mrs. Arlington saw leaning upon the curb, in a posture of meditation,
a figure which both she and her husband recognized. There was no
possibility of avoiding or of evading a meeting with the meddlesome
babbler who had volunteered to prescribe "cowcumber bitters" as a sure
cure for Chester's love. Within the ten years since the revelation on
the summit of the mound, and the piroque tour to the island, Arlington
had seen and heard a good deal of Plutarch Byle. Though it was always
more or less of a social annoyance, and at times an intolerable bore,
to encounter the gossipy humorist, his numberless acquaintances, far
from wishing him ill, admired his honesty and lauded his goodness of
heart.

Byle heard the children's voices, and straightening up his awkward
form, turned to observe the advancing group. His wide mouth opened
with a grin of pleasure; he came forward with gangling strides.

"By crackey, if it isn't the Arlingtons! Home from Virginia, Evaleen,
to old Marietta, on a visit to the folks? You're looking peart. How do
you all do?"

Arlington, out of regard for his wife and kinsfolk, made some
dignified efforts to stem the tide of Byle's familiarity, but his
polite formality was not noticed by the associable democrat, who shook
hands with every one, beginning with the baby.

"So these is your offspring, as the preacher says, are they, Chester?
I knowed you'd have a lot of 'em when I recommended the match. Here's
the suckin' kid; let Uncle Byle heft him once. Gosh, baby, you want to
grab uncle's nose, do you? Well, then, pull away till the cows come
home. What's 'is name?"

"Richard," answered the mother.

"Why didn't you name him after me? P. B. Arlington would sound sort of
uppercrusty, eh? 'Richard,' you say?