ou and I will go alone."

"Oh, land sakes! I wouldn't have you do that for the world! All right,
I'll be out in a jiffy."

He gave his hair a final brush, straightened his tie, turned around once
more before the mirror, and walked fearfully forth to meet the visitor.
For him, the anticipated pleasure of the forenoon had been replaced by
uneasy foreboding.

But Mrs. Corcoran Dunn, as she rose creakingly to greet him, was
extremely gracious. She was gowned and furred and hatted in a manner
which caused the captain to make hasty mental estimate as to cost, but
she extended a plump hand, buttoned in a very tight glove, and murmured
her gratification.

"I'm so glad you are to accompany us, Captain Warren," she gushed. "It
is a charming winter morning, isn't it?"

Captain Elisha touched the plump glove with his own big finger tips,
and admitted that the morning was "fust-rate." He was relieved from the
embarrassment of further conversation just then by Caroline's appearance
in the library. She, too, was richly dressed.

"Are we all ready?" she asked, brightly. "Then we may as well start."

"I'm afraid we're a trifle early, my dear," said Mrs. Dunn, "but we can
stroll about a bit before we go in."

The captain looked at the library clock. The time was a quarter to
eleven.

"Early?" he exclaimed, involuntarily. "Why, I thought Caroline said--"

He stopped, suddenly, realizing that he had spoken aloud. His niece
divined his thought and laughed merrily.

"The service does begin now," she said, "but no one is ever on time."

"Oh!" ejaculated her uncle, and did not speak again until they were at
the door of the church. Then Caroline asked him what he was thinking.

"Nothin' much," he answered, gazing at the fashionably garbed throng
pouring under the carved stone arch of the entrance; "I was just
reorganizin' my ideas, that's all. I've always sort of thought a plug
hat looked lonesome. Now I've decided that I'm wearin' the lonesome
kind."

He marched behind his niece and Mrs. Dunn up the center aisle to the
Warren pew. He wrote his housekeeper afterwards that he estimated
that aisle to be "upwards of two mile long. And my Sunday shoes had a
separate squeak for every inch," he added.

Once seated, however, and no longer so conspicuous, his common sense
and Yankee independence came to his rescue. He had been in much bigger
churches than this one, while abroad during his seagoing years. He knew
that his clothes were