began to say, when they gathered in Mrs.
Linceford's room at nearly tea-time, after a rest and freshening of
their toilets.

"We might stay longer," Mrs. Linceford answered. "But the rooms are
taken for us at Outledge, and one can't settle and unpack, when it's
only a lingering from day to day. All there is here one sees from the
windows. A great deal, to be sure; but it's all there at the first
glance. We'll see how we feel on Friday."

"The Thoresbys are here, Augusta. I saw Ginevra on the balcony just now.
They seem to have a large party with them. And I'm sure I heard them
talk of a hop to-night. If your trunks would only come!"

"They could not in time. They can only come in the train that reaches
Littleton at six."

"But you'll go in, won't you? 'T isn't likely they dress much
here,--though Ginevra Thoresby always dresses. Elinor and I could just
put on our blue grenadines, and you've got plenty of things in your
other boxes. One of your shawls is all you want, and we can lend Leslie
something."

"I've only my thick traveling boots," said Leslie; "and I shouldn't
feel fit without a thorough dressing. It won't matter the first night,
will it?"

"Leslie Goldthwaite, you're getting slow! Augusta!"

"As true as I live, there is old Marmaduke Wharne!"

"Let Augusta alone for not noticing a question till she chooses to
answer it," said Jeannie Hadden, laughing. "And who, pray, is Marmaduke
Wharne? With a name like that, if you didn't say 'old,' I should make up
my mind to a real hero, right out of a book."

"He's an original. And--yes--he is a hero,--_out_ of a book, too, in his
way. I met him at Catskill last summer. He stayed there the whole
season, till they shut the house up and drove him down the mountain.
Other people came and went, took a look, and ran away; but he was a
fixture. He says he always does so,--goes off somewhere and 'finds an
Ararat,' and there drifts up and sticks fast. In the winter he's in New
York; but that's a needle in a haystack. I never heard of him till I
found him at Catskill. He's an English-man, and they say had more to his
name once. It was Wharne_cliffe_, or Wharne_leigh_, or something, and
there's a baronetcy in the family. I don't doubt, myself, that it's his,
and that a part of his oddity has been to drop it. He was a poor
preacher, years ago; and then, of a sudden, he went out to England, and
came back with plenty of money, and since then he's been an apostle and
missi