. Fire away about Janet. How long's she been
shut up? What will Jim do next? I'll do my best to persuade him to
take her round the world. He'd enjoy it himself for there are clubs in
every port and some kind of sport. I'll look him up tomorrow."

Mrs. Oglethorpe gave him a sharp look but surrendered. When he shouted
"Jane" at her in precisely the same tone as he often exploded "Jim" to
her son, she found herself suddenly in a mood to deny him nothing.

XXXII

They went up to her sitting-room to spend the rest of the evening. It
was a large high room overlooking the park and furnished in massive
walnut and blood-red brocade: a room as old-fashioned and ugly as its
mistress but comfortable withal. On a table in one corner was an
immense family Bible, very old, and recording the births, marriages,
and deaths of the Van den Poeles from the time they began their
American adventures in the seventeenth century. On another small table
in another corner was a pile of albums, the lowest containing the first
presentments of Mrs. Oglethorpe's family after the invention of
calotype photography. These albums recorded fashion in all its stages
from 1841 down to the sport suit, exposed legs and rolled stockings of
Janet Oglethorpe; a photograph her grandmother had sworn at but
admitted as a curiosity.

One of the albums was devoted to the friends of Mrs. Oglethorpe's
youth, and Mary Ogden occupied the place of honor. Clavering had once
derived much amusement looking over these old albums and listening to
Mrs. Oglethorpe's running and often sarcastic comment; but although he
had recalled to mind this photograph the night Mr. Dinwiddie had been
so perturbed by the stranger's resemblance to the flame of his youth,
he had, himself, been so little interested in Mary Ogden that it had
not occurred to him to disinter that old photograph of the eighties and
examine it in detail. He turned his back squarely on it tonight,
although he had a misgiving that it was not Janet who had inspired Mrs.
Oglethorpe's singular note.

On one wall was a group of daguerreotypes, hideous but rare and
valuable. An oil painting of James Oglethorpe, long dead, hung over
the fireplace; an amiable looking gentleman with long side-whiskers
sprouting out of plump cheeks, a florid complexion, and the expression
of a New Yorker who never shirked his civic obligations, his
chairmanships of benevolent institutions, nor his port. Opposite was
ano