"No, no!" called out Sprowl; "you'll only hamper me." But Lansing did not hear him outside in the sunshine. Agatha Sprowl laid one fair, heavily ringed hand on the table and pushed her chair back. The Major gallantly waddled to withdraw her chair; she rose with a gesture of thanks, and a glance which shot the Major through and through--a wound he never could accustom himself to receive with stoicism. Mrs. Sprowl turned carelessly away, followed by her two Great Danes--a superb trio, woman and dogs beautifully built and groomed, and expensive enough to please even such an amateur as Peyster Sprowl, M.F.H."Gad, Sprowl!" sputtered the Major, "your wife grows handsomer every minute--and you grow fatter."

Sprowl, midway in a glass of claret, said: "This simple backwoods régime is what she and I need."

Agatha Sprowl was certainly handsome, but the Major's eyesight was none of the best. She had not been growing younger; there were lines; also a discreet employment of tints on a very silky skin, which was not quite as fresh as it had once been. 

Dr. Lansing, strolling on the veranda with his pipe, met her and her big dogs turning the corner in full sunlight. Coursay was with her, his eager, flushed face close to hers; but he fell back when he saw his kinsman Lansing, and presently retired to the lawn to unreel and dry out a couple of wet silk lines. 

Agatha Sprowl sat down on the veranda railing, exchanging a gay smile across the lawn with Coursay; then her dark eyes met Lansing's steel-gray ones. "Good-morning, once more," she said, mockingly. 

He returned her greeting, and began to change his mist leader for a white one. "Will you kindly let Jack Coursay alone?" she said, in a low voice. 

"No," he replied, in the same tone. 

"Are you serious?" she asked, as though the idea amused her. 

"Of course," he replied, pleasantly. "Is it true that you came here because he came?" she inquired, with faint sarcasm in her eyes.

 "Yes," he answered, with perfect good-nature. "You see he's my own kin; you see I'm the old-fashioned sort--a perfect fool, Mrs. Sprowl." 

There was a silence; he unwound the glistening leader; she flicked at shadows with her dog-whip; the Great Danes yawned and laid their heavy heads against her knees. "Then you _are_ a fool," she concluded, serenely. 

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