ght again."

"Oh, men!--I am never afraid of men. It is the women I dread."

"Then we won't have any women," cried the Professor.

Kate smiled. "Oh, yes, you will! Jemima has read about chaperons in
novels. She'll see to that."

"Wouldn't I be a sufficient chaperon?"

"You can't be a chaperon and a dancing man as well," she teased him.
"Take your choice. Oh, I foresee a strenuous career ahead of you, my
friend! Think of the invitations, and the decorations, and the favors,
and the menu!"

"I had not thought of it in detail," admitted the Professor, rather
nervously. "You--you alarm me. Still, I shall go through with it."

"You will indeed, with Jemima at the helm," she murmured. "You poor
lamb! Perhaps the famous nephew will be of some assistance? I dare say
he knows a good deal about balls, and things of that sort."

"Unfortunately, J. Percival is no longer my guest"--the Professor spoke
a little stiffly. "At present he is visiting your neighbor Mr. Farwell,
at Holiday Hill--an old acquaintance, I understand. You have seen
nothing of him?"

She shook her head. "We do not know Mr. Farwell, and we are rather
simple folk to appeal to the literary palate."

"Humph!" said the other dubiously. "I should not call Jemima, for
instance, exactly a simple person. Look out for him, Kate!"

She raised her eyebrows. "You speak as if your famous nephew were a
ravening wild wolf, Jim!"

"He's worse--He's a--temperamentalist," said the other, grimly. It was
not the word he had started to use.

CHAPTER XX

The old hall of Storm, with its memories of many a wild festivity, had
never served as background for a prettier sight than Jemima and
Jacqueline Kildare, coming shyly down the steps in their first
ball-dresses, followed by a girl in gingham, equally young and pretty,
with an anxious proprietary eye upon the hang and set of their fineries.

"Don't you hug 'em, please, Miss Kate," warned this girl as they
descended. "Tulle musses so easy."

There was a long "A-ah!" of delight from the foot of the stairs, where
the entire household was assembled, to the youngest pickaninny from the
quarters. Jemima, exquisite and fragile as a snow-spirit in her white
tulle, descended with the queenly stateliness that seems possible only
to very small women; but Jacqueline, pink as a rose, flushed and dewy as
if she had just been plucked from the garden, took the final steps with
a run and landed in her mother's arms, despite