laugh that had threatened for minutes fairly flared out into his
placid, young prophet face.

"Oh, I am so sorry, Sallie, and so glad to see all of you that I'm
laughing at the same time," I exclaimed to save myself from the
awfulness of greeting a young widow's announcement of her sorrow in such
an unfeeling manner. To cover my embarrassment and still further
struggles with the laugh that never seemed to be able to have itself
out, I bent and hugged up one of the toddlers, who were balancing
against the Crag's legs, with truly feminine fervor.

"I'm glad to see you, Evelina," said Cousin James gently, and I could
see that the billows of my mirth had got entirely past him.

I was glad he had escaped, and I found myself able to look with
composure at his queer, long-tailed gray coat, which made me know that
little old Mr. Pinkus, who had been Father's orderly all through the
war, was still alive and tailoring in his tiny shop down by the
post-office, though now that Father is dead he probably only does it for
Cousin James. The two of them had been his only customers for years. And
as I looked, I saw that the locks that curled in an ante-bellum fashion
around the Crag's ears, were slightly sprinkled with gray, and
remembered how he had loved and stood by Father, even in the manner of
wearing Pinkus clothes; my heart grew very large all of a sudden, and I
held out my hand to him.

[Illustration: He stood calmly in the midst of Sallie's family and
baggage, both animate and inanimate.]

"I'm glad to be at home," I said, gazing straight into his eyes, with a
look of affection that you would have been proud of, Jane,--using
unconsciously, until after I had done it, the warmth I had tried
unsuccessfully on Richard Hall at the Astor, not forty-eight hours
ago, but two thousand miles away. And it got a response that puzzles me
to think of yet. It was just a look, but there was a thought of Father
in it, also a suggestion of the glance he bestowed on Sallie's twins. I
remembered that the Crag seldom speaks, and that's what makes you spend
your time breathlessly listening to him.

"Well, come on, everybody, let's go home and undress, and forget about
the wedding," came in Henrietta's positive and executive tones. "Let's
go and take the strange lady with us. We can have company if we can't be
it. She can sleep other side of me, next the wall."

I have never met anybody else at all like Henrietta Carruthers, and I
never shall