ne with outstretched hands, kissed
her effusively on the cheek.

"My dear child," she cried, "how could I stay away? We have spoken of
you and Stephen _so_ often this morning. We know how lonely you must be,
and Malcolm and I decided we _must_ run in on you after lunch. Didn't
we, Malcolm?"

Mr. Malcolm Corcoran Dunn, her son, was a blond young man, with a rather
indolent manner.

"Sure, Mater!" he said, calmly. "How d'ye do, Caroline? 'Lo, Steve!"

The quartette shook hands. Mrs. Dunn sank creakingly into a chair and
gazed about the room. Malcolm strolled to the window and looked out.
Stephen followed and stood beside him.

"My dear," said Mrs. Dunn, addressing Caroline, "how are you getting on?
How are your nerves? Is all the dreadful 'settling' over?"

"Very nearly, thank goodness."

"That's a mercy. I should certainly have been here yesterday to help you
in superintending and arranging and so on, but I was suffering from one
of my 'hearts,' and you know what _they_ are."

Everyone who knew Mrs. Corcoran Dunn was acquainted with her "hearts."
The attacks came, so she was accustomed to explain, from an impaired
valve, and "some day"--she usually completed the sentence with upturned
eyes and a resigned upward wave of the hand.

Her son turned from the window.

"I say, Mother," he explained, wearily, "I do wish you wouldn't speak of
your vital organs in the plural. Anyone would imagine you were a sort
of freak, like the two-headed boy at the circus. It's positively
distressing."

Stephen laughed. He admired young Dunn immensely. Mrs. Dunn sighed.

"Don't, Malcolm, dear," she pleaded. "You sound so unfeeling. One not
acquainted with your real kindness of heart--"

"Oh, drop it," interrupted Malcolm. "Let's omit the heart interest.
This isn't a clinic. I say, Steve, how do you like the new flat? It is a
flat, isn't it?"

Stephen turned red. His sister colored and bit her lip. Mrs. Dunn
hastened to the rescue.

"Horrors!" she exclaimed. "Malcolm, you really are insufferable. Flat!
Caroline, dear, you mustn't mind him. He will have his joke. Malcolm,
apologize."

The command was sharp, and her son obeyed it.

"Beg your pardon, Steve," he said. "Yours, too, Caroline. I was only
joking. There's a little beast of a bookkeeper down at the office who
is forever talking of his 'nice flat in the Bronx.' It's a standing
guy, you know. So far as I can see, these are pretty snug quarters. And
attractively arran