ing herself to fight on Rookie's side,
"who'd have expected you, Mrs. Powell?"

Dick stood frowning at them impartially and twisting his hat in his
hands like a sulky boy.

"Have you opened your house?" Amelia persisted. "You're not staying----"

"She's staying here," said Raven. "Nan's taken pity on me and come up
for a visit. Oh, Charlotte! here you are. Show Mrs. Powell to her room,
will you?"

Charlotte appearing, white-aproned, in the doorway, looking like the
beneficent goddess of home, Mrs. Powell greeted her urbanely and asked
appropriate questions. Was she well, as well as she looked? And how was
her husband? Always well, she remembered. Yes, she would go to her room,
please. But she'd go up by herself. She knew the way. She should think
so, indeed! And her reminiscent laugh endowed them with the picture of
the little girl she had been, born and brought up in this very house.

"Oh, but it isn't up," said Raven cheerfully. "It's the west bedroom."

"Not----" she began, and he nodded, taking her coat from the chair.

"Yes, Old Crow's room. What was going to be his if he hadn't given 'em
the slip. I put Nan into the west chamber. You'll be awfully comfortable
in that room, Milly. I'll take in your bag."

Amelia, immediately circumspect when she did not see her way, did follow
him, but she was in as great a state of suppressed dudgeon as a
civilized lady, living by the latest rules, allows herself to be. Dick
and Nan, left alone in the dining-room, turned upon each other like two
young furies.

"You came up here," said Dick, in a tone of ill-suppressed ire, "to tell
him we were coming. I call it a mean trick."

"What about you?" inquired Nan. "You'd better not talk about tricks. Can
you think of a meaner one than giving him away to the entire middle
west?'"

"The middle west!" echoed Dick bitterly. "I told my mother."

"Yes, you told your mother. And she comes up here with her alienists."

"You'll notice," said Dick icily, "the alienist didn't come."

"I assume," said Nan, "he's expected on the next train. Or he's going to
pounce some time when Rookie isn't prepared."

"You little beast!" said Dick. "You don't deserve it, but I'll inform
you he isn't coming at all. I choked him off. I told him mother's the
one that's dotty or she wouldn't have called him in, and Uncle Jack
wasn't a patient and never'd consent if he knew. And he was an awfully
decent fellow and said nothing would induce him to come.