wear
the heart upon the sleeve is hereditary with us, you know."

"Keep clear of the daws, my son, and it does no harm," responded the Major.
"There's nothing so becoming to a gentleman as a fine heart well worn, eh,
Molly?"

He carefully spread the butter upon his cakes, for his day of love-making
was over, and his eye could hold its twinkle while he watched Dan fidget in
his seat.

Mrs. Lightfoot promptly took up the challenge. "For my part I prefer one
under a buttoned coat," she replied briskly; "but be careful, Mr.
Lightfoot, or you will put notions into the boys' heads. They are at the
age when a man has a fancy a day and gets over it before he knows it."

"They are at the age when I had my fancy for you, Molly," gallantly
retorted the Major, "and I seem to be carrying it with me to my grave."

"It would be a dull wit that would go roving from Aunt Molly," said Champe,
affectionately; "but there aren't many of her kind in the world."

"I never found but one like her," admitted the Major, "and I've seen a good
deal in my day, sir."

The old lady listened with a smile, though she spoke in a severe voice.
"You mustn't let them teach you how to flatter, Mr. Morson," she said
warningly, as she filled the Major's second cup of coffee--"Cupid, Mr.
Morson will have a partridge."

"The man who sits at your table will never question your supremacy, dear
madam," returned Jack Morson, as he helped himself to a bird. "There is
little merit in devotion to such bounty."

"Shall I kick him, grandma?" demanded Dan. "He means that we love you
because you feed us, the sly scamp."

Mrs. Lightfoot shook her head reprovingly. "Oh, I understand you, Mr.
Morson," she said amiably, "and a compliment to my housekeeping never goes
amiss. If a woman has any talent, it will come out upon her table."

"You're right, Molly, you're right," agreed the Major, heartily. "I've
always held that there was nothing in a man who couldn't make a speech or
in a woman who couldn't set a table."

Dan stirred restlessly in his chair, and at the first movement of Mrs.
Lightfoot he rose and went out into the hall. An hour later he ordered
Prince Rupert and started joyously to Uplands.

As he rode through the frosted air he pictured to himself a dozen different
ways in which it was possible that he might meet Virginia. Would she be
upon the portico or in the parlour? Was she still in pink or would she wear
the red gown of yesterday? When she gave