arm, her
bright eyes shining with anticipation. Aunt Ruth dearly loved a bit of
excitement and seldom found much in her quiet life upon the farm. As
Matthew Kendrick looked up and saw her coming slowly down, her husband
carefully adjusting himself to the dip and swing of her step as she put
always the same foot foremost, he found himself distinctly glad of his
grandson's suggestion, since it gave him so charming a guest to
entertain as Mrs. Rufus Gray.

In the interval Richard had retired to a telephone, and had made the
wires between his present position and the stone pile warm with his
orders. In consequence a certain gray-haired housekeeper, lately
returned from some family festivities of her own and about to retire,
found herself galvanized into activity by the sound of a well-known and
slightly imperious voice issuing upsetting instructions to have the best
suite of rooms in the house made ready within half an hour for
occupancy, and the house itself lighted for the reception of the guests.
Other commands to butler and Mr. Richard's own manservant followed in
quick succession, and when the young man turned away from the telephone
he was again smiling to himself at thought of the consternation he was
causing in a household accustomed to be run upon such lines of
conservatism and well defined routine that any deviation therefrom was
likely to prove most unacceptable. He himself was at home there such a
small portion of his time, and during the periods he spent there was so
careful never to bring within its walls any festival-making of his own,
he knew just how astonishing to the middle-aged housekeeper, the
solemn-faced old butler, and the rest of them, would be these midnight
orders. He was enjoying the giving of such orders all the more for that!

Old Matthew Kendrick assisted Mrs. Rufus Gray into his luxuriously
fitted, electric-lighted town-car as if she had been a royal personage,
wrapping about her soft, thick rugs until she was almost lost to view.

"Why, I couldn't be cold in this shut-in place," she protested. "Not a
breath could touch any one in here, I should say."

"I should call it pretty snug," Rufus Gray agreed with his wife, looking
about him at the comfortable appointments of the car. "But there's just
one thing a carriage like this wouldn't be good for, and that's taking a
party of young folks on a sleigh ride, on a snapping winter's night!"
His bright brown eyes regarded those of Matthew Kendri