complimentary terms.

"You don't count, Pokie," she exclaimed, as she made a good-natured face
at him.

"That's what Evelina said four years ago--and she has proved it," he
answered her, looking at me just exactly as if he had never left off
doing it since that last dance.

"How lovely to find you in the same exuberant spirits in which I left
you, Polk, dear," I exclaimed, as I got up to go and shake hands with
him, as he had sunk into the most comfortable chair in the room, without
troubling to bestow that attention upon me.

Some men's hearts beat with such a strong rhythm that every feminine
heart which comes within hearing distance immediately catches step, and
goes to waltzing. It has been four years since mine swung around
against his, at that dance, but I'm glad Cousin Martha was there, and
interrupted, us enough to make me drag my eyes from his, as he looked up
and I looked down.

"Please help us to persuade Evelina to come and live with James and me,
Polk, dear," she said, glancing at him with the deepest confidence and
affection in her eyes. There is no age-limit to Polk's victims, and
Cousin Martha had always adored him.

"All women do, Evelina, why not you--live with James?" he asked, and I
thought I detected a mocking flicker in his big, hazel, dangerous eyes.

"If I ever need protection it will be James--and Cousin Martha I will