the business."

"Come over here and sit down," invited Princeman, somewhat more than
courteously.

"Wait a minute until I send for McComas. Here, boy, hunt Mr. McComas
and ask him to come out on the porch."

The new guest was reaching for pencil and paper as they gathered their
chairs together. The two girls had already started hesitantly to
efface themselves. Half-way across the lawn they looked sadly toward
the porch again. That handsome young Mr. Turner, his back toward them,
was deep in formulated but thrilling facts, while three other heads,
one gray and one black and one auburn, were bent interestedly over the
envelope upon which he was figuring.

Later on, as he was dressing for dinner, Mr. Turner decided that he
liked Meadow Brook very much. It was set upon the edge of a pleasant,
rolling valley, faced and backed by some rather high hills, upon the
sloping side of one of which the hotel was built, with broad verandas
looking out upon exquisitely kept flowers and shrubbery and upon the
shallow little brook which gave the place its name. A little more
water would have suited Sam better, but the management had made the
most of its opportunities, especially in the matter of arranging dozens
of pretty little lovers' lanes leading in all directions among the
trees and along the sides of the shimmering stream, and the whole
prospect was very good to look at, indeed. Taken in conjunction with
the fact that one had no business whatever on hand, it gave one a sense
of delightful freedom to look out on the green lawn and the gay
gardens, on the brook and the tennis and croquet courts, and on the
purple-hazed, wooded hills beyond; it was good to fill one's lungs with
country air and to realize for a little while what a delightful world
this is; to see young people wandering about out there by twos and by
threes, and to meet with so many other people of affairs enjoying
leisure similar to one's own.

Of course, this wasn't a really fashionable place, being supported
entirely by men who had made their own money; but there was Princeman,
for instance, a fine chap and very keen; a well-set-up fellow,
black-haired and black-eyed, and of a quick, nervous disposition; one
of precisely the kind of energy which Turner liked to see. McComas,
too, with his deep red hair and his tendency to freckles, and his frank
smile with all the white teeth behind it, was a corking good fellow;
and alive. McComas was in the furnitur