"What was your idea in making me ridiculous that way?" his aunt asked in
severe reproach, as she advanced to meet him in the reception-hall. "Do
you want to set me up as a laughingstock for all my friends and
neighbors? After all I've told Bertie about your music, too! I don't know
whether I shall let you know her or not."

"It was pretty rocky, wasn't it?" Truesdale admitted, with a cheery
impartiality. "I'm afraid it takes more practice than I've ever had a
chance to give it. And perhaps I don't understand the genius of the
instrument. Where do you suppose they learn to do it? How long a course
is necessary, do you fancy, to get a complete grip on the technique?"

His aunt's protest had been purely personal. With a broader outlook and a
better understanding she might have protested on behalf of a slighted
neighborhood, or, indeed, of a misprized town. A finer vision might have
seen in Truesdale's prank a good-natured, half-contemptuous indifference
alike to place and people. "I don't know _what_ the Warners over the way
will think," she emitted, as if that were all.

She presently relented as to the new inmate of her household. "Come,
Bertie!" she called; "step up, like a good girl. This is my nephew
Truesdale--you've heard all about him; Miss Bertie Patterson, of
Madison."

Miss Patterson of Madison was a shy, brown-eyed little girl who, at a
guess, had been in long dresses but a year or two; as she faced Truesdale
she seemed to be wondering if she might venture to smile. She had never
before been south of the Wisconsin State line; but Mrs. Rhodes, having
exhausted the ranks of her own nieces, was now giving a tardy recognition
to the nieces of her late husband. Bertie Patterson had come for the