n't ask you!"

"No, I'm fust-rate," Clementina returned, with a silent joy in her
father's face and voice. She went back in it to the girl of a year ago,
and the world which had come between them since their parting rolled
away as if it had never been there.

Neither of them said anything about that. She named over her brothers
and sisters, and he answered, "Yes, yes," in assurance of their
well-being, and then he explained, as if that were the only point
of real interest, "I see your folks waitin' he'e fo' somebody, and I
thought I'd see if it wa'n't the same one, and we kind of struck up an
acquaintance on your account befo'e you got he'e, Clem."

"Your folks!" she silently repeated to herself. "Yes, they ah' mine!"
and she stood trying to realize the strange fact, while George's sister
poured out a voluminous comment upon Claxon's spare statement, and
George's father admired her volubility with the shut smile of toothless
age. She spoke with the burr which the Scotch-Irish settlers have
imparted to the whole middle West, but it was music to Clementina, who
heard now and then a tone of her lover in his sister's voice. In the
midst of it all she caught sight of a mute unfriended figure just
without their circle, his traveling shawl hanging loose upon his
shoulders, and the valise which had formed his sole baggage in the
voyage to and from Europe pulling his long hand out of his coat sleeve.

"Oh, yes," she said, "here is Mr. Osson that came ova with me, fatha;
he's a relation of Mr. Landa's," and she presented him to them all.

He shifted his valise to the left hand, and shook hands with each,
asking, "What name?" and then fell motionless again.

"Well," said her father, "I guess this is the end of this paht of the
ceremony, and I'm goin' to see your baggage through the custom-house,
Clementina; I've read about it, and I want to know how it's done. I want
to see what you ah' tryin' to smuggle in."

"I guess you won't find much," she said. "But you'll want the keys,
won't you?" She called to him, as he was stalking away.

"Well, I guess that would be a good idea. Want to help, Miss Hinkle?"

"I guess we might as well all help," said Clementina, and Mr. Orson
included himself in the invitation. He seemed unable to separate himself
from them, though the passage of Clementina's baggage through the
customs, and its delivery to an expressman for the hotel where the
Hinkles said they were staying might well have seve