of a long cloth and sable coat that would have made Cherry sit up and
groan if he had even had a grave-dream about it. She bestowed a smile on
Polly, a still more impressive one on the major and sank into a chair
near Phoebe.

"Why, where is David Kildare?" she asked interestedly. "I thought he
would be here before me. He promised to come. Phoebe, you are sweet in
that dark gray. Has anybody anything interesting to tell?"

"I have," answered Polly as she passed Phoebe a cup and a mischievous
smile, for Mrs. Cherry's appointment with David tickled Polly's risibles
to an alarming extent. "There's the most heavenly man down here from
Boston to see Caroline Darrah Brown and she _neglects_ him. I'm so sorry
for him that I don't know what will happen. I'm--"

"Why, where is he?" interrupted Mrs. Cherry with the utmost cordiality.

They all laughed as Polly parted her charming lips and passed the
questioner the lemon slices with impressive obviousness.

"He's gone to the station to see about his horses that he has had shipped
down. We're going to hunt some more, no matter how cold; all of us,
Caroline and David and the rest."

"Andrew Sevier hasn't hunted at all this fall, as fond of it as he is.
He'll never come now that you've annexed a foreign element, Polly. He's
among strangers so much that he's rather absurd about wanting the close
circle of just his old friends to be unbroken when he's home. Where is he
to-day?" As she spoke Mrs. Cherry had looked at Caroline Darrah with a
glance in which Phoebe detected a slight insolence and at which the major