you like her, Uncle Winthrop. I knew you would if you saw her, but I
didn't know you'd see her so much."

"How could I help it if I saw her once? The trouble has been to get
her to see me. Perhaps she thinks I am too old to--"

"Oh, she knows you aren't the sweetheart kind--Miss Robin French told
her so, and mother and everybody says you are too set in your ways to
get married, and that's why I think she likes you, because you aren't
that sort. She hates flum talk, and you talk sense and things. She
told father so. Here she is now. Please stay with Uncle Winthrop,
Cousin Claudia, while I ask mother if I may take dinner with you."
Dorothea got up. "You took off your riding boots, didn't you?"

Claudia looked at her slippers. "I surely did. I never wear high
shoes in the house. Your mother says you may take dinner with us,
but she wants to see you as soon as it is over. Her headache is
better, but she doesn't feel like coming down to-night."




X

A DISCOVERY

In a chair of curious carving, his feet on a pile of books which had
been unpacked, but for which there was as yet no place, Winthrop
Laine leaned back, partly relaxed, partly tense, and with half-shut
eyes looked at a picture on the wall opposite. For an hour, two