hated so much.

'No; Arthur will never be so mean,' he said. 'He has always shown
himself generous, and will continue to do so. Besides that, he will want
somebody to keep his house for him, unless--' and here the perspiration
started from every pore, as Frank Tracy thought: 'What if he is married,
and the _us_ in his telegram means a wife, instead of a friend or
servant, as I imagined!'

This would indeed be a calamity, for then his own and Dolly's reign was
over at Tracy Park, and the party they were to give that night to at
least three hundred people would be their last grand blow-out.

'Confound the party!' he thought, as he arose from his chair and began
to pace the room. 'Arthur won't like that as a greeting after eleven
years' absence. He never fancied being cheek by jowl with Tom, Dick and
Harry; and that is just what the smash is to-night. Dolly wants to
please everybody, thinking to get me votes for Congress, and so she has
invited all creation and his wife. There's old Peterkin, the roughest
kind of a canal bummer when Arthur went away. Think of my fastidious
brother shaking hands with him and Widow Shipley, who kept a low tavern
on the tow-path! She'll be there; in her silks and long gold chain, for
she has four boys, all voters, who call me _Frank_ and slap me on the
shoulder. Ugh! even I hate it all; and in a most perturbed state of
mind, the Hon. Frank and would-be Congressman continued to walk the room
lamenting the party which must be, and wondering what his aristocratic
brother would say to such a crowd in his house on the night of his
return.

And if there should be a Mrs. Arthur Tracy, with possibly some little