olesome trio.

Aunt Agatha watched, sniffed and frequently groaned.

How much the kindly ruse of Philip had helped, Diane herself could not
suspect, but her remorseful thoughts were frequently busy with memories
of the old childhood days with Carl. He had been an excellent
horseman, a sturdy swimmer, an unerring shot, compelling respect in
those old, wild vacation days on the Florida plantation. If the
cruelty had crept into her manner at an age when she could not know, it
had been a reflex of the attitude of the stern old planter whose son
and daughter had been so conspicuously erratic.

Gently enough, too, the girl sought to make Aunt Agatha comprehend the
curious facts that had come to light that morning beneath the trees.
Quite in vain. That good lady refused flatly to absorb it, grew
ludicrously plaintive and aggrieved and flew off at tearful tangents
into complicated segments of family history from which it was possible
to extricate only the most ridiculous of facts, chief among them the
reiterated assurance that her own father had been, in the bosom of his
family, of a delightfully sportive nature, but nothing like the
Westfalls--dear no!--that he had a genteel figure, my dear, for all he
had developed a somewhat corpulent tendency in later years; that the
corn-beef which mother procured was highly superior to those portions
of salted quadruped which Johnny obtained in the village--and facts of
similar irrelevancy.

Diane had heard of the corn-beef and father's corpulency before, but
she was now somewhat gentler and less impatient and checked the old
careless flashes of annoyance. And, having supplemented the hand bag
by a shopping trip to the nearest village, Aunt Agatha, to the girl's
dismay, announced one day:

"It's my duty to stay, Diane, and stay I will. Mother would have
stayed, I'm sure, and mother's judgment was usually correct, though she
would wear smoked glasses."

Rowing in one morning with a string of fish, Diane was a little
fluttered at the sight of a tall, broad-shouldered young man upon the
shore, who waved his hat and quietly waited for her boat to come in.
His dark skin was clear and ruddy and very brown, his mouth resolute,
the careless grace and impudence of his old manner replaced by
something steadier, quieter and possibly a shade less assured.

The meeting was by no means easy for either, and with remorseful
memories leaping wildly in the heart of each, they smiled and called