had acquired something of a reputation as a high flier among his own sex,
and a heart breaker among the fairer one. Reckless, debonair, utterly
irresponsible, he was still "terrible Teddy" as his father had jocosely
dubbed him long ago. Yet he was quite as lovable as he was irrepressible,
and had a manifest grace to counterbalance every one of his many faults.
His soberer brother Larry worried uselessly over Ted's misdeeds, and took
him sharply to task for them; but even Larry admitted that there was
something rather magnificent about Ted and that possibly in the end he
would come out the soundest Holiday of them all.

There remains only Carlotta to be introduced. Carlotta was lovely to look
upon. A poet speaks somewhere of a face "made out of a rose." Carlotta
had that kind of a face and her eyes were of that deep, violet shade
which works mischief and magic in the hearts of men. As for her hair, it
might well have been the envy of any princess, in or out of the covers of
a book, so fine spun was it in texture, so pure gold in color, like the
warm, vivid shimmer of tropical sunshine. She lifted an inquiring gaze
now to Dick, as she held out her hand in acknowledgment of the
introduction, and Dick murmured something platitudinous, bowed politely
over the hand and never noticed what color her eyes were. A single track
mind is both a curse and a protection to a man.

"Carlotta _would_ come," Tony was explaining gaily, "though I told her
there wasn't room. Let me inform you all that Carlotta is the most
completely, magnificently, delightfully spoiled young person in these
United States of America."

"Barring you?" teased her uncle.

"Barring none. By comparison with Carlotta, I am all the noble army of