invitations to drop in at the inn. Alice accompanied her to the first
stone that marked the threshold of the side door, and was bowing her
away, when Mr. Philip swung over the fence by the wood-shed, with a
shot-gun on his shoulder, and swinging in his left hand a gray squirrel
by its bushy tail, and was immediately in front of the group.

"Ah!" involuntarily from Mrs. Mavick. An introduction was inevitable.

"My cousin, Mr. Burnett, Mrs. Mavick." Philip raised his cap and bowed.

"A hunter, I see."

"Hardly, madam. In vacations I like to walk in the woods with a gun."

"Then you are not--"

"No," said Philip, smiling, "unfortunately I cannot do this all the
time."

"You are of the city, then?"

"With the firm of Hunt, Sharp & Tweedle."

"Ah, my husband knows them, I believe."

"I have seen Mr. Mavick," and Philip bowed again.

"How lucky!"

Mrs. Mavick had an eye for a fine young fellow--she never denied that