on.

"It was not so bad as that," said Mrs. Nailor, her face very red. "Miss
Huntington, you can take your hands down now; I sha'n't tell it."

"Thank you," said Lois, and sat quietly back in her chair, with her face
as placid as a child's.

Mrs. Nailor suddenly changed the conversation to Art. She was looking at
a painting on the wall behind Keith, and after inspecting it a moment
through her lorgnon, turned toward the head of the table.

"Where did you get that picture, Mrs. Wickersham? Have I ever seen it
before?"

The hostess's gaze followed hers.

"That? Oh, we have had it ever so long. It is a portrait of an ancestor
of mine. It belonged to a relative, a distant relative--another branch,
you know, in whose family it came down, though we had even more right to
it, as we were an older branch," she said, gaining courage as she
went on.

Mrs. Lancaster turned and inspected the picture.

"I, too, almost seem to have seen it before," she said presently, in a
reflective way.

"My dear, you have not seen it before," declared the hostess,
positively. "Although we have had it for a good while, it was at our
place in the country. Brush, the picture-dealer, says it is one of the
finest 'old masters' in New York, quite in the best style of Sir
Peter--What's his name?"

"Then I have seen some one so like it--? Who can it be?" said Mrs.
Lancaster, her mind still working along the lines of reminiscence.

Nearly every one was looking now.

"Why, I know who it is!" said Lois Huntington, who had turned to look at
it, to Mrs. Lancaster. "It is Mr. Keith." Her clear voice was heard
distinctly.

"Of course, it is," said Mrs. Lancaster. Others agreed with her.

Keith, too, had turned and looked over his shoulder at the picture
behind him, and for a moment he seemed in a dream. His father was
gazing down at him out of the frame. The next moment he came to himself.
It was the man-in-armor that used to hang in the library at Elphinstone.
As he turned back, he glanced at Mrs. Lancaster, and her eyes gazed into
his. The next moment he addressed Mrs. Wickersham and started a new
subject of conversation.

"That is it," said Mrs. Lancaster to herself. Then turning to her
hostess, she said: "No, I never saw it before; I was mistaken."

But Lois knew that she herself had seen it before, and remembered where
it was.

Mrs. Wickersham looked extremely uncomfortable, but Keith's calm
courtesy set her at ease again.

When the