it's too provincial to sit on a girl's front steps with her?"

"'Provincial?' Why, it's the very best of our institutions," he
returned, taking his place beside her. "At least, I think so to-night."

"Thanks! Is that practice for other nights somewhere else?"

"No," he laughed. "The practicing all led up to this. Did I come too
soon?"

"No," she replied, gravely. "Just in time!"

"I'm glad to be so accurate; I've spent two evenings wanting to come,
Miss Adams, instead of doing what I was doing."

"What was that?"

"Dinners. Large and long dinners. Your fellow-citizens are immensely
hospitable to a newcomer."

"Oh, no," Alice said. "We don't do it for everybody. Didn't you find
yourself charmed?"

"One was a men's dinner," he explained. "Mr. Palmer seemed to think I
ought to be shown to the principal business men."

"What was the other dinner?"

"My cousin Mildred gave it."

"Oh, DID she!" Alice said, sharply, but she recovered herself in the
same instant, and laughed. "She wanted to show you to the principal
business women, I suppose."

"I don't know. At all events, I shouldn't give myself out to be so much
feted by your 'fellow-citizens,' after all, seeing these were both done
by my relatives, the Palmers. However, there are others to follow, I'm
afraid. I was wondering--I hoped maybe you'd be coming to some of them.
Aren't you?"

"I rather doubt it," Alice said, slowly. "Mildred's dance was almost the
only evening I've gone out since my father's illness began. He seemed
better that day; so I went. He was better the other day when he wanted
those cigars. He's very much up and down." She paused. "I'd almost
forgotten that Mildred is your cousin."

"Not a very near one," he explained. "Mr. Palmer's father was my
great-uncle."

"Still, of course you are related."

"Yes; that distantly."

Alice said placidly, "It's quite an advantage."

He agreed. "Yes. It is."

"No," she said, in the same placid tone. "I mean for Mildred."

"I don't see----"

She laughed. "No. You wouldn't. I mean it's an advantage over the rest
of us who might like to compete for some of your time; and the worst of
it is we can't accuse her of being unfair about it. We can't prove she
showed any trickiness in having you for a cousin. Whatever else she
might plan to do with you, she didn't plan that. So the rest of us must
just bear it!"

"The 'rest of you!'" he laughed. "It's going to mean a great deal of
suffering!"

A