all the party into a little fit of laughter, from which Mr. Heathcote
could not recover.

"I don't see anything to double you up like a jack-knife," said Mr.
Ketchum, in allusion to his guest's way of stooping over and having the
laughs, as it were, shaken out of him by a superior force, while he got
out at intervals,--

"Jest--creep--High--such a fellow!" in staccato jerks that made every one
else laugh from sympathy.

"I call 'em that because Mother Schmidt made them for me so that I could
steal a march on my mother-in-law, and she's a Catholic and knew how to do
it. Talking of Catholics and what Washington calls the 'Peskypalians,' who
is going to church to-day?"

"I am going to walk over to Dale with Bijou Brown and her father," said
Ethel.

"That isn't as nice a church as ours. We will take the others into Kalsing,
eh, husband?" said Mabel; "that is, if they will come."

"I will go to the scaffold with Mrs. Ketchum," protested Sir Robert
gallantly. "What do you youngsters say?"

"Ramsay and I thought we would walk over to that little village on the
crest of a hill that one can see from my window," said Mr. Heathcote.

"You had much better go to church, --much better. But of course your soul
is your own," said Sir Robert.