it most suitable, and I would not go to any
great pains to hide the compliment of the dedication under a bushel of
disguise either, if I were you. The Lydia Languish age of abnormal
privacy and distorted, unhealthy sensibility has fortunately passed.
Nowadays women like men to be direct, outspoken, definite, where they are
concerned."

"Do you think so?" asked Martin, in real surprise. "I feared possibly
that it might annoy her."

"I know so--annoy her, fudge!" was father's comment.

* * * * *

When we went in to dinner, Miss Lavinia at once noticed the change in
Martin's appearance, and said, in a spirit of mischief which of course I
alone noticed:--

"Back from the city, and with new clothes, too,--how very smart and
becoming they are."

But poor Martin was quite guileless, and looking down at his coat in a
puzzled way, as if to make doubly sure, replied, "No, it cannot be my
clothes, for they are the same." Then, brightening, as the possible
reason occurred to him: "Perhaps it may be my shaven face; you see, the
barber made an error in the trimming of my decorations yesterday, and he
thought it better to take them entirely off and have them grow afresh,
but I had not thought of the matter in the light of an improvement."

"But it is one, most decidedly," continued Miss Lavinia, nodding brightly
across at him, while father, who now realized the change he could not
locate, cried:--

"Don't let them grow again, my boy. You look ten years younger, at the
very least, which you know at our age is not to be despised!"

Then we all grew hilarious, and talked together like a lot of school
children, and when the boys came in to dessert, as usual, they also were
infectiously boisterous over the catching of some bass in the river where
Timothy Saunders had taken them that afternoon as a special treat. They
clamoured and begged so for Uncle Martin to stop over the next day for
fishing and have one more good time with them, that he, feeling flattered
almost to the point of embarrassment, yielded upon Evan's suggesting
that, instead of going by the eight o'clock morning train as he intended,
he could wait for one late in the evening, which would get him to town
before eleven. For Martin was to move into his new bachelor apartments
the following morning.

The three men lingered long at the table, smoking, the talk punctuated by
long periods of silence, each regretting in his own way the pres