whine in the cellar, father? That point isn't clear,
sir," said Tee Wee's deep voice.

"Because it was a whine-cellar!" cried Hen, through the portieres.

There was mild laughter at this, rather derisive on the part of all but
the Major; but when Chas, glancing up from his paper, remarked crisply:
"Aw, Miss Mamie! Like to speak to you a minute, please!"--the merriment
seemed mysteriously to acquire a more genuine ring. Carlisle politely
inquired who Miss Mamie was.

Looloo, who alone seemed the least bit awed by the presence of her
dazzling cousin, undertook to explain.

"She's Mamie Willis, Cally,--I don't believe you know her. Well, you see
she's always making the most atrocious puns, and is very proud of
them--thinks she's quite a wit. So, you see, when anybody makes an
awfully bad pun, like Hen's--"

"Brightest thing I've heard to-night," screamed Hen, defiantly, through
the curtains.

"Aw, Loo!" came her mother's soft voice from the unseen. "Run upstairs
and get half a dozen napkins, my child. The wash is in the basket on
my bed."

"We always pretend like we're repeating it to Miss Mamie, just for fun,"
concluded Looloo. "Yes'm, mother!"

"Oh! I see," said Carlisle.

She had donned for the coming to supper a plain house-dress of soft
dark-green silk, two summers old and practically discarded. ("This old
thing, my dear! Why, it positively belongs in the _rag-bag!_") She never
dressed much for the Cooneys. Also, by wholly mechanical processes of
adjustment to environment, her manner and air became simpler, somewhat
unkeyed: she unconsciously folded away her more shining wings.
Nevertheless, there was about her to-night a fleeting kind of radiance
which had caught the notice of more than one of her cavalier cousins,
notably of pretty little Looloo, who had kissed the visitor shyly (for a
Cooney) at greeting, and said, "Oh, Cally! You do look _so_ lovely!"
Cally herself was aware of an inner buoyance oddly at variance with the
drab Cooney _milieu_. Recent progress in the great game had more than
blotted out all memory of little mishaps at the Beach....

Starting aloft for the napkins, Looloo was adroitly tripped by Tee Wee,
and fell back upon him with a little shriek. Instead of checking the
tumult that followed, Major Cooney, including Carlisle in the
proceedings with a mischievous wink, called out: "Give it to him, Loo!
Give it to him!" Loo, having got her small hand in his hair, gave it to
him, good-fas