"Both," claimed Miss Devine.

"Myself? I must confess," shouted the tall young lady's father,
commonly called the Colonel, "I found him a fool."

"I noticed you seemed to be getting on very well together," purred his
wife, a plump, smiling little lady.

"Possibly we were," retorted the Colonel. "Fate has accustomed me to
the society of fools."

"Isn't it a pity to start quarrelling immediately after dinner, you
two," suggested their thoughtful daughter from the sofa, "you'll have
nothing left to amuse you for the rest of the evening."

"He didn't strike me as a conversationalist," said the lady who was
cousin to a baronet; "but he did pass the vegetables before he helped
himself. A little thing like that shows breeding."

"Or that he didn't know you and thought maybe you'd leave him half a
spoonful," laughed Augustus the wit.

"What I can't make out about him--" shouted the Colonel.

The stranger entered the room.

The Colonel, securing the evening paper, retired into a corner. The
highly coloured Kite, reaching down from the mantelpiece a paper fan,
held it coyly before her face. Miss Devine sat upright on the