but neither the
circumstances nor the people were ordinary, and she now felt anxious to
get home and find out what Claude Locker and Olive had done with Mrs.
and Mr. Fox.

_CHAPTER VIII_

_Captain Asher is not in a Good Humor._

The next morning was very bright for Captain Asher; he was going to see
Olive, and he did not know before how much he wished to see her.

When Dick Lancaster came from the house to take his seat in the buggy
the sight of the handsome suit of dark-blue serge, white shirt and
collar, and patent-leather shoes, with the trousers hanging properly
above them, placed Dick very much higher in the captain's estimation
than the young man with the colored shirt and rolled-up trousers could
ever have reached. The captain, too, was well dressed for the occasion,
and Mrs. Easterfield had no reason whatever to be ashamed of these two
gentlemen when she introduced them to her other visitors.

She liked Professor Lancaster. Having lately had a good deal of Claude
Locker, she was prepared to like a quiet and thoroughly self-possessed
young man.

Olive was the latest of the little company to appear, and when she came
down she caused a genuine, though gentle sensation. She was most
exquisitely dressed, not too much for a luncheon, and not enough for a
dinner. This navy girl had not studied for nothing the art of dressing
in different parts of the world. Her uncle regarded her with open-eyed
astonishment.

"Is this my brother's daughter?" he asked himself. "The little girl who
poured my coffee in the morning and went out to take toll?"

Olive greeted her uncle with absolute propriety, and made the
acquaintance of Mr. Lancaster with a formal courtesy to which no
objection could be made. Apparently she forgot the existence of Mr.
Locker, and for the greater part of the meal she conversed with Mr. Fox
about certain foreign places with which they were both familiar.

The luncheon was not a success; there was a certain stiffness about it
which even Mrs. Easterfield could not get rid of; and when the gentlemen
went out to smoke on the piazza Olive disappeared, sending a message to
Mrs. Easterfield that she had a bad headache and would like to be
excused. Her excuse was a perfectly honest one, for she was apt to have
a headache when she was angry; and she was angry now.

The reason for her indignation was the fact that her uncle's visitor was
an extremely presentable young man. Had it been otherwise, O