m start lip with a
sudden shock of unwelcome surprise.

"By Jove! Can it be that I am a victim of it too? It looks confoundedly
like it, although even my sweet little Puritan has not felt it a sin
against her conscience to keep me in the dark."

He thrust his fingers with an impatient gesture through his hair. "Now I
come to think of it, the case grows deucedly clear. The South of France
one winter and Florida this! Simple nervous prostration would seem to
the uninitiated better fought in the exhilirating ozone of Colorado,
or--the North Pole--than in this languorous atmosphere. 'An inherited
tendency.' Is this the pleasant little legacy which my respected
ancestor has bequeathed to his only grandson? It skipped the Judge, but
it caught poor Uncle Lenox, and now it has nabbed me! What a fool I have
been not to surmise what this confounded pain meant between my
shoulders! Grandfather Hildreth kept himself alive with nostrums until
he was seventy, but he was an invalid all his life. He ought to be
cursed for his contemptible selfishness in bringing so much suffering
upon the race! There's none of the taint about Evadne, bless her! Russe
told me the Hospital examiners said they had never passed such a perfect
specimen of health."

He stopped suddenly and bit his lips in pain. Would he not follow his
grandfather's example--if he had the chance?

"What in the world is the meaning of all this?"

Louis had arrived by an earlier train than he was expected and only his
mother was at home to greet him. The hall was in confusion, workmen's
tools lay about and ladders stood against the walls. Mrs. Hildreth
laughed lightly, as she laid her hand within her son's arm.

"Oh, they are only getting ready for the floral decorations," she said,
"we give a reception to-morrow in honor of your return. How well you are
looking, Louis. I am so delighted to have you at home."

"Thanks, lady mother. I do not need to ask how you have survived my
absence. How is Evadne,--and the Judge and the girls?"

His mother laughed again as she drew him on the sofa beside her. She
seemed in wonderfully good humor. "Rather a comprehensive question," she
said. "Sit down and we will have a comfortable talk before the others
get home. Your father looks wretchedly but he says there is nothing the
matter. I suppose it is just overwork and the usual money strain.
Isabelle too is not as well as I should like her to be. Suffers from
nervousness a great deal,