whatsoever, or that, being there on that account, she
had allowed her attention to wander for one instant in the direction of
things of which she was in reality unconscious.

Having pulled enough twigs to emphasize her unconsciousness--and at the
same time her disapproval--of everything in the nature of a Sheridan
or belonging to a Sheridan, she descended the knoll with maintained
composure, and sauntered toward a side-door of the country mansion of
the Vertreeses. An elderly lady, bonneted and cloaked, opened the door
and came to meet her.

"Are you ready, Mary? I've been looking for you. What were you doing?"

"Nothing. Just looking into one of Sheridans' windows," said Mary
Vertrees. "I got caught at it."

"Mary!" cried her mother. "Just as we were going to call! Good heavens!"

"We'll go, just the same," the daughter returned. "I suppose those women
would be glad to have us if we'd burned their house to the ground."

"But WHO saw you?" insisted Mrs. Vertrees.

"One of the sons, I suppose he was. I believe he's insane, or something.
At least I hear they keep him in a sanitarium somewhere, and never talk
about him. He was staring at himself in a mirror and talking to himself.
Then he looked out and caught me."

"What did he--"

"Nothing, of course."

"How did he look?"

"Like a ghost in a blue suit," said Miss Vertrees, moving toward the
street and waving a white-gloved hand in farewell to her father, who
was observing them from the window of his library. "Rather tragic and
altogether impossible. Do come on, mother, and let's get it over!"

And Mrs. Vertrees, with many misgivings, set forth with her daughter for
their gracious assault upon the New House next door.

CHAPTER V

Mr. Vertrees, having watched their departure with the air of a man who
had something at hazard upon the expedition, turned from the window and
began to pace the library thoughtfully, pending their return. He was
about sixty; a small man, withered and dry and fine, a trim little
sketch of an elderly dandy. His lambrequin mustache--relic of a
forgotten Anglomania--had been profoundly black, but now, like his
smooth hair, it was approaching an equally sheer whiteness; and though
his clothes were old, they had shapeliness and a flavor of mode. And for
greater spruceness there were some jaunty touches; gray spats, a narrow
black ribbon across the gray waistcoat to the eye-glasses in a pocket,
a fleck of color from a button in the