he can't prevent that, but Father kicks at
anything but one o'clock dinner and meat tea at six, and I suppose he
always will."

"Doesn't one tea spoil the other?" Lorne inquired. "I find it does
when I go to your minister's and peck at a cress sandwich at five. You
haven't any appetite for a reasonable meal at six. But I guess it won't
matter to Hesketh; he's got a lot of sense about things of that sort.
Why he served out in South Africa--volunteered. Mrs Emmett needn't
worry. And if we find him pining for afternoon tea we can send him over
here."

"Well, if he's nice. But I suppose he's pretty sure to be nice. Any
friend of the Emmetts--What is he like, Lorne?"

"Oh, he's just a young man with a moustache! You seem to see a good many
over there. They're all alike while they're at school in round coats,
and after they leave school they get moustaches, and then they're all
alike again."

"I wish you wouldn't tease. How tall is he? Is he fair or dark? What
colour are his eyes?"

Lorne buried his head in his hands in a pretended agony of recollection.

"So far as I remember, not exactly tall, but you wouldn't call him
short. Complexion--well, don't you know?--that kind of middling
complexion. Colour of his eyes--does anybody ever notice a thing like
that? You needn't take my word for it, but I should say they were a kind
of average coloured eyes."

"Lorne! You ARE--I suppose I'll just have to wait till I see him. But
the girls are wild to know, and I said I'd ask you. He'll be here in
about two weeks anyhow, and I dare say we won't find him so much to make
a fuss about. The best sort of Englishmen don't come over such a very
great deal, as you say. I expect they have a better time at home."

"Hesketh's a very good sort of Englishman," said Lorne.

"He's awfully well off, isn't he?"

"According to our ideas I suppose he is," said Lorne. "Not according to
English ideas."

"Still less according to New York ones, then," asserted Dora. "They
wouldn't think much of it there even if he passed for rich in England."
It was a little as if she resented Lorne's comparison of standards, and
claimed the American one as at least cis-Atlantic.

"He has a settled income," said Lorne, "and he's never had to work for
it, whatever luck there is in that. That's all I know. Dora--"

"Now, Lorne, you're not to be troublesome."

"Your mother hasn't come in at all this evening. Don't you think it's a
good sign?"

"She isn't qui