d to show her really slim and pretty feet. Lulu's feet gave news of
some other Lulu, but slightly incarnate. Perhaps, so far, incarnate only
in her feet and her long hair.

She took the lamp to the parlour and stood before the photograph of
Ninian Deacon, and looked her fill. She did not admire the photograph,
but she wanted to look at it. The house was still, there was no
possibility of interruption. The occasion became sensation, which she
made no effort to quench. She held a rendezvous with she knew not what.

In the early hours of the next afternoon with the sun shining across
the threshold, Lulu was paring something at the kitchen table. Mrs. Bett
was asleep. ("I don't blame you a bit, mother," Lulu had said, as her
mother named the intention.) Ina was asleep. (But Ina always took off
the curse by calling it her "si-esta," long _i_.) Monona was playing
with a neighbour's child--you heard their shrill yet lovely laughter as
they obeyed the adult law that motion is pleasure. Di was not there.

A man came round the house and stood tying a puppy to the porch post. A
long shadow fell through the west doorway, the puppy whined.

"Oh," said this man. "I didn't mean to arrive at the back door, but
since I'm here--"

He lifted a suitcase to the porch, entered, and filled the kitchen.

"It's Ina, isn't it?" he said.

"I'm her sister," said Lulu, and understood that he was here at last.

"Well, I'm Bert's brother," said Ninian. "So I can come in, can't I?"

He did so, turned round like a dog before his chair and sat down
heavily, forcing his fingers through heavy, upspringing brown hair.

"Oh, yes," said Lulu. "I'll call Ina. She's asleep."

"Don't call her, then," said Ninian. "Let's you and I get acquainted."

He said it absently, hardly looking at her.

"I'll get the pup a drink if you can spare me a basin," he added.

Lulu brought the basin, and while he went to the dog she ran tiptoeing
to the dining-room china closet and brought a cut-glass tumbler, as
heavy, as ungainly as a stone crock. This she filled with milk.

"I thought maybe ..." said she, and offered it.

"Thank _you_!" said Ninian, and drained it. "Making pies, as I live," he
observed, and brought his chair nearer to the table. "I didn't know Ina
had a sister," he went on. "I remember now Bert said he had two of her
relatives----"

Lulu flushed and glanced at him pitifully.

"He has," she said. "It's my mother and me. But we do quite a good