at first, even
to Adelle!

But as she lay upon her pretty bed, which had been painted for her in
Paris with a flock of unblushing Amours, and stared at the painted
ceiling, her good sense rapidly came back to her. In her character it
was the substitute for humor. After all, there was nothing so
extraordinary in the fact. There must be many similar cases of poor
relations among all the people she knew, even with the Paysons and the
Carharts, who were the primates of Bellevue society. When families had
been living for a long time on this earth, there must grow up such
inequalities of fortune between the different branches, even among the
different members of the same generation. If people were only aware of
all their relations, there would doubtless be many surprises in life.
What would Archie say to it? In the first place, she probably would not
tell him, and he had no good ground for criticism anyway. The Davises
were not highly distinguished folk: no doubt Archie could find in any
telephone directory plenty of distant cousins of humble station. As for
Tom Clark himself, she did not feel that he would be disagreeable after
he had learned his relationship to his employer. He might whistle and
laugh and get off one of those ironical and contemptuous utterances
about society of which he seemed fond.

After thinking it all over, Adelle rose and dressed herself; then,
taking the package of letters, of which she had only casually examined
the others, went up the path to the tar-paper shack. It was a hot
afternoon, and the mason had only just come back from his task. He had
not yet washed, and was sitting before his door, all red and sweaty,
smoking his pipe and scratching his arms in a sensuous relaxation of
muscles after the day's work. He looked altogether the workman. He did
not rise at her approach, but removing his pipe, remarked, as if he had
been expecting her visit,--

"Well, did you read the stuff?"

"Yes," Adelle replied, holding out the package; "I read some of them."

"That's more'n I could do," he said, receiving the letters and staring
at them as if they had been Egyptian hieroglyphs. "What could you make
out of 'em?"

"One thing!" Adelle exclaimed. "Your grandfather and my grandfather must
have been own brothers."

"You don't say!" Tom Clark exclaimed, throwing back his head and giving
vent to that robust, ironical laugh that Adelle had expected. "So old
Stan Clark was your great-uncle?"

Adelle nodd