th for a change of air,
prepared to learn anything you might have to teach me. If you've got any
more traps and masked batteries, let them loose on me; practice on me to
your heart's content. You've undertaken to convert me, and I'm here to
give you a chance: a fine old apostle you are. But I don't quite
understand Miss Elliston's position here, Bob."

"Her position here, or anywhere else, is that she does about as she
pleases, and makes everybody else do it too, as you will see before your
hair is gray, my learned friend. As I may have told you, we are her
nearest relatives: she is an orphan."

"Parents been dead long?"

"About seventeen years. What's that got to do with it?"

"O, not much; don't be so suspicious. Do you think I'm trying to play
some trick on you, after your model? How should I, a helpless stranger
in a strange land, betrayed by the friend in whom I trusted? I'm an
orphan myself too. So that Miss Elliston is in a measure dependent on
your kindness?"

"O, don't fancy that she's a poor relation, or anything of that sort.
She's got more cash than she wants, and loads of friends: had twenty
invitations for the summer. If you don't behave to suit her, she's
liable to go off any day to Bar Harbor, or Saratoga, or the Yosemite, or
Kamtchatka."

"Very good of her, to stay here with you, then."

"Well, Mabel is deeply attached to her; so is Jane, and the children of
course. Her parents and mine were close friends in the country--where I
came from, you know. She and I were brought up together; that is, she
was--I was mostly brought up before her appearance on this mundane
sphere. We used to play in the haymow, and fall from the apple trees
together, and all that. O, Clarice is quite a sister to me--a pretty
good sister too, all things considered."

"And you are quite a brother to her, as I see. Strange, that it never
occurred to mention her, when you were describing the various members of
your family. Does her mind match her personal attractions?"

"She's got as good a head as you have, old man, or any other male
specimen I've struck. I myself meet her on almost equal terms. O, hang
that; I don't either. This is no subject for profane jesting. Talk about
the inferiority of women! If the moralists and stump-speakers had one
like her at home, they'd change their tune. But there are no more like
her."

"You speak warmly, Bob. To Clarice every virtue under heaven. Beautiful,
brilliant, accomplished, ami