unless Jane Mathers marries and--I sincerely hope that some
day she and Jane will meet.

And the next ten minutes was one of the most strenuous periods of time I
ever put in, in all my life. I longed, really longed, to go home with
Sallie and Henrietta, and sleep next the wall at Widegables with the
rest of the Crag's collection. But I knew Glendale well enough to see
plainly that if I thus once give myself up to the conventions that by
Saturday night they would have me nicely settled with his relicts, or in
my home with probably two elderly widows and a maiden cousin or so to
look after me. And then, by the end of the next week, they would have
the most suitable person in town fairly hunted by both spoken and mental
influence, to the moonlight end of my front porch, with matrimonial
intentions in his pocket. I knew I had to take a positive stand, and
take it immediately. I must be masculinely firm. No feminine wiles would
serve in such a crisis as this.

So, I let Cousin James pack me into his low, prehistoric old surrey, in
the front seat, at his side, while Sallie took Aunt Dilsie and one twin
with her on the back seat. Henrietta scrouged down at my feet, and I
fearingly, but accommodatingly, accepted the other twin. It was a
perfect kitten of a baby, and purred itself to sleep against my shoulder
as soon as anchored.

The half-mile from the station, along the dusty, quiet village streets,
was accomplished in about the time it would take a modern vehicle to
traverse Manhattan lengthwise, and at last we stopped at the gate of
Widegables. The rambling, winged, wide-gabled, tall-columned old pile of
time-grayed brick and stone, sat back in the moonlight, in its tangle of
a garden, under its tall roof maples, with a dignity that went straight
to my heart. There is nothing better in France or England, and I feel
sure that there are not two hundred houses in America as good. I'll
paint it, just like I saw it to-night, for next Spring's Salon. A bright
light shone from the windows of the dining-room in the left wing, where
the collection of clinging vines were taking supper, unconscious of the
return of the left-behinds that threatened.

And as I glanced at my own tall-pillared, dark old house, that stands
just opposite Widegables, and is of the same period and style, I knew
that if I did not escape into its emptiness before I got into Cousin
Martha's comfortable arms, surrounded by the rest of the Crag's family,
I wou