t to look at the first coat of my paint
that I ever tried on a house."

"Yes; we've heard that story," said Penelope, with easy security of her
father's liking what she said. "We were brought up on that story."

"Well, it's a good story," said her father.

At that moment a young man came suddenly in range, who began to look up
at the signs of building as he approached. He dropped his eyes in
coming abreast of the bay-window, where Lapham sat with his girls, and
then his face lightened, and he took off his hat and bowed to Irene.
She rose mechanically from the trestle, and her face lightened too.

She was a very pretty figure of a girl, after our fashion of girls,
round and slim and flexible, and her face was admirably regular. But
her great beauty--and it was very great--was in her colouring. This
was of an effect for which there is no word but delicious, as we use it
of fruit or flowers. She had red hair, like her father in his earlier
days, and the tints of her cheeks and temples were such as suggested
May-flowers and apple-blossoms and peaches. Instead of the grey that
often dulls this complexion, her eyes were of a blue at once intense
and tender, and they seemed to burn on what they looked at with a soft,
lambent flame. It was well understood by her sister and mother that
her eyes always expressed a great deal more than Irene ever thought or
felt; but this is not saying that she was not a very sensible girl and
very honest.

The young man faltered perceptibly, and Irene came a little forward,
and then there gushed from them both a smiling exchange of greeting, of
which the sum was that he supposed she was out of town, and that she
had not known that he had got back. A pause ensued, and flushing again
in her uncertainty as to whether she ought or ought not to do it, she
said, "My father, Mr. Corey; and my sister."

The young man took off his hat again, showing his shapely head, with a
line of wholesome sunburn ceasing where the recently and closely
clipped hair began. He was dressed in a fine summer check, with a blue
white-dotted neckerchief, and he had a white hat, in which he looked
very well when he put it back on his head. His whole dress seemed very
fresh and new, and in fact he had cast aside his Texan habiliments only
the day before.

"How do you do, sir?" said the Colonel, stepping to the window, and
reaching out of it the hand which the young man advanced to take.
"Won't you come in? We'r