King to think the good members of the House of Montgomery
meant to overlook my wickedness. Not a bit of it! You can hear Josie
going on. She evidently laid it on so thick it made the old lady hot.
When she came in, she took me by both hands and said, 'You silly little
fool, so you've come back.' Then she kissed me. And I cried, being a
silly little fool, just as she said. And she didn't say another word
about what I'd done or hadn't done, but began talking about her trip
abroad in 1872, when she saw it all, she says--the Nile and everything.
She swung around to Phil and told me a lot of funny stories about her.
She talked about Tom and you before she left; said she'd never made out
how you and Tom meant to divide up the Bartlett girls; seems to be bent
on marrying you both into the family."

"Thunder!" he exploded. This unaccountable sister had the most amazing
way of setting a target to jingling and then calmly walking off. The
thought of her husband's marrying again evidently gave her no concern
whatever.

"Not nice of you to be keeping your own prospects a dark secret when I'm
living under the same roof with you. Out with it."

"Don't be foolish, Lois."

"But why don't you be a good brother and 'fess up? As I remember they're
both nice women--quite charming and fine. I should think you'd take your
pick first, and then let Tom have what's left. You deserve well of the
world, and time flies. Don't you let my coming back here interfere with
your plans. I'm not in your way. If you think I'm back on your hands,
and that you can't bring home your bonny bride because I'm in your
house, you're dead wrong. You ought to be relieved." She ended by
indicating the memorandum of her assets; and then tore it into bits and
began pushing them into a little pile on the table.

"It must be Rose--the musical one. Phil has told me about the good times
you and she and Tom have had in Buckeye Lane. I looked all over the
house for your flute and wondered what had become of it; so you keep it
there, do you--you absurd brother! Rose plays the piano, you flute, and
Tom saws the 'cello, and Nan and Phil are the audience. By the way, Mrs.
King mentioned a book Nan Bartlett seems to be responsible for--'The
Gray Knight of Picardy.' Everybody was reading it on the train when I
came out, but I didn't know it was a Montgomery production. Another
Hoosier author for the hall of fame! It comes back to me that Nan always
was rather different--quie