with pleasure. To perception less fine, there would have been food for unseemly mirth in his attire. Never in all her life before had Dorothy seen rough cow-hide boots, and grey striped trousers worn with a rusty and moth-eaten dress-coat in the middle of the afternoon. An immaculate expanse of shirt-front and a general air of extreme cleanliness went far toward redeeming the unfamiliar costume. The silk 44 hat, with a bell-shaped crown and wide, rolling brim, belonged to a much earlier period, and had been brushed to look like new. Even Harlan noted that the ravelled edges of his linen had been carefully trimmed and the worn binding of the hat brim inked wherever necessary.

44

His wrinkled old face was kindly, though somewhat sad. His weak blue eyes were sheltered by an enormous pair of spectacles, which he took off and wiped continually. He was smooth-shaven and his scanty hair was as white as the driven snow. Now, as he sat in Uncle Ebeneezer’s parlour, he seemed utterly friendless and forlorn—a complete failure of that pitiful type which never for a moment guesses that it has failed.

“It will be my delight,” the old man was saying, his hollow cheeks faintly flushed, “to see that the elite of Judson Centre pay proper respect to you at an early date. If I were not most unfortunately a single gentleman, my wife would do herself the honour of calling upon you immediately and of tendering you some sort of hospitality approximately commensurate with your worth. As it is——”

“As it is,” said Harlan, taking up the wandering 45 thread of the discourse, “that particular pleasure must be on our side. We both hope that you will come often, and informally.”

45

“It would be a solace to me,” rejoined the old gentleman, tremulously, “to find the niece and nephew of my departed friend both congenial and companionable. He was my Colonel—I served under him in the war—and until the last, he allowed me to address him as Colonel—a privilege accorded to no one else. He very seldom left his own estate, but at his request I often spent an evening or a Sunday afternoon in his society, and after his untimely death, I feel the loss of his companionship very keenly. He was my Colonel—I——”

“I should imagine so,” said Harlan, kindly, “though, as I have told you, I never knew him at all.”

“A much-misunderstood gentleman,” continued Mr. Bradford, carefully wiping his spectacles. “My grief is too recent, at present, to enable me to 

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