ct state of preservation, and in
the original glass case."

"I'd like to come," George told him. "Could I--to-night? I don't know
just how long I shall be staying down."

"Any time--any time. To-night, of course. There's nothing I like better
than to talk about my birds, unless it is to eat them. Isn't that so,
Claudia?"

"Yes, Father." Mrs. Beaufort was studying Dalton closely. His manner was
perfect. It was, indeed, she decided, too perfect. "He is thinking too
much of the way he does it." The one sin in Aunt Claudia's mind was
social self-consciousness. People who thought all of the time about
manners hadn't been brought up to them. They must have them without
thinking. George was not, she decided, a gentleman in the Old Dominion
sense. Dalton would have been amazed could he have looked into Aunt
Claudia's mind and have seen himself a--Publican.

"Father," she said, after Dalton had left them, "did I hear you invite
him to dinner?"

"Yes, my dear, but he could not come----"

"I'm glad he couldn't."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure that he's--our kind----"

"Nonsense, he's a very fine fellow."

"How do you know?"

"Well, I know this," testily, "that I am not to be instructed as to the
sort of person I can ask to my house."

"Oh, Father, I didn't mean that. Of course you can do as you please."

"Of course I shall, Claudia."

"I think he is charming," said Mrs. Paine. "He has lovely eyes."

"Hasn't he?" said little Becky.

CHAPTER III

THE WOLF IN THE FOREST

I

The Bird Room at Judge Bannister's was back of the library. It was a big
room lined with glass cases. There hung about it always the faint odor
of preservatives. The Trumpeter Swan had a case to himself over the
mantel. He had been rather stiffly posed on a bed of artificial moss,
but nothing could spoil the beauty of him--the white of his plumage, the
elegance of his lines. He was one of a dying race--the descendants of
the men who had once killed for food had killed later to gratify the
vanity of women who must have swans down to set off their beauty, puffs
to powder their noses. No more did great flocks wing an exalted flight,
high in the heavens, or rest like a blanket of snow on river banks. The
old kings were dead--the glassy eyes of the Trumpeter looked out upon a
world which knew his kind no more.

In the other cases were the little birds and big ones--ducks, swimming
on crystal pools, canvas-backs and redheads, mallards and tea