the hall; then they heard his heavy tread
upon the stairs.

Mrs. Sheridan, rising to follow him, turned a piteous face to her son.
"It's so forlone," she said, chokingly. "That's the first time he spoke
since he came in the house this evening. I know it must 'a' hurt him to
hear Edith laughin' with that Lamhorn. She'd oughtn't to let him come,
right the very first evening this way; she'd oughtn't to done it! She
just seems to lose her head over him, and it scares me. You heard what
Sibyl said the other day, and--and you heard what--what--"

"What Edith said to Sibyl?" Bibbs finished the sentence for her.

"We CAN'T have any trouble o' THAT kind!" she wailed. "Oh, it looks as
if movin' up to this New House had brought us awful bad luck! It scares
me!" She put both her hands over her face. "Oh, Bibbs, Bibbs! if you
only wasn't so QUEER! If you could only been a kind of dependable son!
I don't know what we're all comin' to!" And, weeping, she followed her
husband.

Bibbs gazed for a while at the fire; then he rose abruptly, like a man
who has come to a decision, and briskly sought the room--it was called
"the smoking-room"--where Edith sat with Mr. Lamhorn. They looked up in
no welcoming manner, at Bibbs's entrance, and moved their chairs to a
less conspicuous adjacency.

"Good evening," said Bibbs, pleasantly; and he seated himself in a
leather easy-chair near them.

"What is it?" asked Edith, plainly astonished.

"Nothing," he returned, smiling.

She frowned. "Did you want something?" she asked.

"Nothing in the world. Father and mother have gone up-stairs; I sha'n't
be going up for several hours, and there didn't seem to be anybody left
for me to chat with except you and Mr. Lamhorn."

"'CHAT with'!" she echoed, incredulously.

"I can talk about almost anything," said Bibbs with an air of
genial politeness. "It doesn't matter to ME. I don't know much about
business--if that's what you happened to be talking about. But you
aren't in business, are you, Mr. Lamhorn?"

"Not now," returned Lamhorn, shortly.

"I'm not, either," said Bibbs. "It was getting cloudier than usual, I
noticed, just before dark, and there was wind from the southwest. Rain
to-morrow, I shouldn't be surprised."

He seemed to feel that he had begun a conversation the support of
which had now become the pleasurable duty of other parties; and he
sat expectantly, looking first at his sister, then at Lamhorn, as if
implying that it was the