y cousin," returned Miss Priscilla. "I lost
sight of her after she left Dinwiddie, but somebody was telling me the
other day that Henry's investments all turned out badly and they came
down to real poverty. Sarah Jane was a pretty girl and I was always very
fond of her, but she was one of the improvident sort that couldn't make
two ends meet without tying them into a bow-knot."

"Then Oliver must be just like her. After his mother's death he went to
Germany to study, and he gave away the little money he had to some
student he found starving there in a garret."

"That was generous," commented Miss Priscilla thoughtfully, "but I
should hardly call it sensible. I hope some day, Jinny, that your father
will tell us in a sermon whether there is biblical sanction for
immoderate generosity or not."

"But what does he say?" asked Virginia softly, meaning not the rector,
but the immoderate young man.

"Oh, Oliver says that there wasn't enough for both and that the other
student is worth more to the world than he is," answered Susan. "Then,
of course, when he got so poor that he had to pawn his clothes or
starve, he wrote father an almost condescending letter and said that as
much as he hated business, he supposed he'd have to come back and go to
work. 'Only,' he added, 'for God's sake, don't make it tobacco!' Wasn't
that dreadful?"

"It was extremely impertinent," replied Miss Priscilla sternly, "and to
Cyrus of all persons! I am surprised that he allowed him to come into
the house."

"Oh, father doesn't take any of his talk seriously. He calls it
'starvation foolishness,' and says that Oliver will get over it as soon
as he has a nice little bank account. Perhaps he will--he is only
twenty-two, you know--but just now his head is full of all kinds of new
ideas he picked up somewhere abroad. He's as clever as he can be,
there's no doubt of that, and he'd be really good-looking, too, if he
didn't have the crooked nose of the Treadwells. Virginia has seen him
only once in the street, but she's more than half in love with him
already."

"Do come, Susan!" remonstrated Virginia, blushing as red as the rose in
her hair. "It's past six o'clock and the General will have gone if we
don't hurry." And turning away from the porch, she ran between the
flowering syringa bushes down the path to the gate.

Having lost his bit of cake, the bird began to pipe shrilly, while Miss
Priscilla drew a straight wicker chair (she never used rocke