efore I could throw myself into one of her heavenly
arm-chairs, there to be rested as I had never been before, and never
expect to be again.

It being Peter's winter holiday, he and Morris had stopped over on their
way down from Buffalo, where Holker had spoken at a public dinner. The
other present and expected guests were Ruth MacFarlane, who was already
upstairs; her father, Henry MacFarlane, who was to arrive by the next
train, and last and by no means lest, his confidential clerk, Mr. John
Breen, now two years older and, it is to be hoped, with considerable
more common-sense than when he chucked himself neck and heels out into
the cold world. Whether the expected arrival of this young gentleman had
anything to do with the length of time it took Ruth to dress, the Scribe
knoweth not. There is no counting upon the whims and vagaries of even
the average young woman of the day, and as Ruth was a long way above
that medium grade, and with positive ideas of her own as to whom she
liked and whom she did not like, and was, besides, a most discreet and
close-mouthed young person, it will be just as well for us to watch the
game of battledoor and shuttlecock still being played between Jack and
herself, before we arrive at any fixed conclusions.

Any known and admitted facts connected with either one of the
contestants are, however, in order, and so while we are waiting for old
Moggins, who drives the village 'bus, and who has been charged by
Miss Felicia on no account to omit bringing in his next load a certain
straight, bronzed-cheeked, well-set-up young man with a springy step,
accompanied by a middle-aged gentleman who looked like a soldier, and
deliver them both with their attendant baggage at her snow-banked door,
any data regarding this same young man's movements since the night Peter
wanted to hug him for leaving his uncle's service, cannot fail to be of
interest.

To begin then with the day on which Jack, with Frederick, the second
man's assistance, packed his belongings and accepted Garry's invitation
to make a bed of his lounge.

The kind-hearted Frederick knew what it was to lose a place, and so his
sympathies had been all the more keen. Parkins's nose, on the contrary,
had risen a full degree and stood at an angle of 45 degrees, for he had
not only heard the ultimatum of his employer, but was rather pleased
with the result. As for the others, no one ever believed the boy really
meant it, and everybody--even th