onished or angry.

Mrs. Biggs gave a nasty little laugh.

"Your brother didn't see you," she said to Mrs. Van Alstyne. "I dare say
a sister doesn't count much when a future princess is around!"

Mrs. Van Alstyne was still staring up the staircase, but she came to
herself at that. She had some grit in her, if she did look like a French
doll.

"My brother and Miss Jennings are very old friends," she remarked
quietly. I believe that was what she thought, too. I don't think she had
seen the other red rose, and what was she to think but that Mr. Pierce
had known Miss Jennings somewhere? She was dazed, Mrs. Sam was. But she
carried off the situation anyhow, and gave us time to breathe. We needed
it.

"If I were his highness," said Miss Cobb, spreading the Irish lace
collar she was making over her knee and squinting at it, "I should wish
my fiancee to be more er--dignified. Those old Austrian families
are very haughty. They would not understand our American habit of
osculation."

I was pretty mad at that, for anybody could have seen Miss Patty didn't
kiss him.

"If by osculation you mean kissing, Miss Cobb," I said, going over
to her, "I guess you don't remember the Austrian count who was a head
waiter here. If there was anything in the way of osculation that that
member of an old Austrian family didn't know, I've got to find it out.
He could kiss all around any American I ever saw!"

I went back to my news stand. I was shaking so my knees would hardly
hold me. All I could think of was that they had swallowed Mr. Pierce,
bait and hook, and that for a time we were saved, although in the
electric light Mr. Pierce was a good bit less like Dicky Carter than he
had seemed to be in the spring-house by the fire.

Well, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

Everybody went to bed early. Mr. Thoburn came over and bought a cigar on
his way up-stairs, and he was as gloomy as he had been cheerful before.

"Well," I said, "I guess you won't put a dancing floor in the
dining-room just yet, Mr. Thoburn."

"I'm not in a hurry," he snapped. "It's only January, and I don't want
the place until May. I'll get it when I'm ready for it. I had a good
look at young Carter, and he's got too square a jaw to run a successful
neurasthenics' home."

I went to the pantry myself at ten o'clock and fixed a tray of supper
for Mr. Pierce. He would need all his strength the next day, and a man
can't travel far on buttered pop-corn. I f