Harry,--Harry Challoner, you know,--to whom you used to write when I
was a little slip of a boy."

A strange queen in a hive of bees could not have produced more
confusion. Dulce stopped her sewing-machine so suddenly that her
thread broke; Phillis, who was reading aloud, let her book fall with
quite a crash; and Nan said, "Oh, dear!" and grew quite pale with
surprise and disappointment: for a moment she thought it was Dick. As
for Mrs. Challoner, who had a right to her nerves from years of
injudicious spoiling and indulgence, and would not have been without
her feelings for worlds, she just clasped her hands and murmured "Good
heavens!" in the orthodox lady-like way.

"Why, yes, Aunt Catherine, I am Harry; and I hope you have not
forgotten the existence of the poor little beggar to whom you were so
kind in the old Calcutta days." And his big voice softened
involuntarily in the presence of this dignified aunt.

"Oh, no, my dear!--no!" touched by his manner, and remembering the
boyish scrawls that used to come to her, signed "Your affectionate
nephew, Harry." "And are you indeed my nephew?--are you Harry?" And
then she held out her slim hand, which he took awkwardly enough.
"Girls, you must welcome your cousin. This is Nan, Harry, the one they
always say is like me; and this is Phillis, our clever one; and this
is my pet Dulce." And with each one did their cousin solemnly shake
hands, but without a smile; indeed, his aspect became almost
ludicrous, until he caught sight of his homely little acquaintance,
Mattie, who stood an amused spectator of this family tableau, and his
red, embarrassed face brightened a little.

"Aunt Catherine was such an awfully grand creature, you know," as he
observed to her afterwards, in a confidential aside: "her manners
make a fellow feel nowhere. And as for my cousins, a prettier lot
of girls I never saw anywhere; and of course, they are as jolly and
up to larks as other girls; but just at first, you know, I had a
bull-in-a-china-shop sort of feeling among them all."

Mrs. Challoner, in spite of her fine manners, was far too nervous
herself to notice her nephew's discomfort. She had to mention a name
that was obnoxious to her, for of course she must ask after his
father. She got him into a chair by her at length, where he stared
into his hat to avoid the bright eyes that seemed to quiz him so
unmercifully.

"And how is Sir Francis?" she asked, uttering the name with languid
interest