een several years since he first heard of the young editor of
the Rouen "Journal," and nowadays almost everybody knew about Brainard
Macauley. Outwardly, he was of no unusual type: an American of affairs;
slight, easy, yet alert; relaxed, yet sharp; neat, regular, strong; a
quizzical eye, a business chin, an ambitious head with soft, straight
hair outlining a square brow; and though he was "of a type," he was not
commonplace, and one knew at once that he would make a rattling fight to
arrive where he was going.

It appeared that he had heard of Harkless, as well as the Carlow editor
of him. They had a few moments of shop, and he talked to Harkless as a
brother craftsman, without the offense of graciousness, and spoke of his
pleasure in the meeting and of his relief at Harkless's recovery, for,
aside from the mere human feeling, the party needed him in Carlow--even
if he did not always prove himself "quite a vehement partisan." Macauley
laughed. "But I'm not doing my duty," he said presently; "I was to
present you to the pretty ones only, I believe. Will you designate your
preferred fashion of beauty? We serve all styles."

"Thank you," the other answered, hurriedly. "I met a number last
night--quite a number, indeed." He had seen them only in dim lights,
however, and except Miss Hinsdale and the widower, had not the faintest
recognition of any of them, and he cut them all, except those two, one
after the other, before the evening was over; and this was a strange
thing for a politician to do; but he did it with such an innocent eye
that they remembered the dark porch and forgave him.

"Shall we watch the dancing, then?" asked Macauley. Harkless was already
watching part of it.

"If you will. I have not seen this sort for more than five years."

"It is always a treat, I think, and a constant proof that the older
school of English caricaturists didn't overdraw."

"Yes; one realizes they couldn't."

Harkless remembered Tom Meredith's fine accomplishment of dancing;
he had been the most famous dancer of college days, and it was in the
dancer that John best saw his old friend again as he had known him, the
light lad of the active toe. Other couples flickered about the one
John watched, couples that plodded, couples that bobbed, couples that
galloped, couples that slid, but the cousins alone passed across the
glistening reflections as lightly as October leaves blown over the
forest floor. In the midst of people who danc