there the similarity ceased. And then, there was the toboggan
fire-escape. Well, I must meet the living original before I could decide
whether (for me, at any rate) she was the "brute" as seen by the eyes
of Mrs. Gregory St. Michael, or the "really nice girl" who was going
to marry John Mayrant on Wednesday week. Just at this point my thoughts
brought up hard again at the cake. No; I couldn't swallow that any
better this morning than yesterday afternoon! Allow the gentleman to pay
for the feast! Better to have omitted all feast; nothing simpler, and
it would have been at least dignified, even if arid. But then, there was
the lady (a cousin or an aunt--I couldn't remember which this morning)
who had told me she wasn't solicitous. What did she mean by that? And
she had looked quite queer when she spoke about the phosphates. Oh,
yes, to be sure, she was his intimate aunt! Where, by the way, was Miss
Rieppe?

By the time I had eaten my breakfast and walked up Worship Street to
the post-office I was full of it all again; my searching thoughts
hadn't simplified a single point. I always called for my mail at
the post-office, because I got it sooner; it didn't come to the
boarding-house before I had departed on my quest for royal blood,
whereas, this way, I simply got my letters at the corner of Court and
Worship streets and walked diagonally across and down Court a few
steps to my researches, which I could vary and alleviate by reading and
answering news from home.

It was from Aunt Carola that I heard to-day. Only a little of what
she said will interest you. There had been a delightful meeting of the
Selected Salic Scions. The Baltimore Chapter had paid her Chapter a
visit. Three ladies and one very highly connected young gentleman had
come--an encouragingly full and enthusiastic meeting. They had lunched
upon cocoa, sherry, and croquettes, after which all had been more than
glad to listen to a paper read by a descendant of Edward the Third and
the young gentleman, a descendant of Catherine of Aragon, had recited
a beautiful original poem, entitled "My Queen Grandmother." Aunt Carola
regretted that I could not have had the pleasure and the benefit of this
meeting, the young gentleman had turned out to be, also, a refined and
tasteful musician, playing, upon the piano a favorite gavotte of Louis
the Thirteenth "And while you are in Kings Port," my aunt said; "I
expect you to profit by associating with the survivors of our g