id Aunt Kate.

As the piano had twice begun the prelude to the first figure Mary Jane
led her recruits quickly from the room. They had hardly gone when Aunt
Julia wandered slowly into the room, looking behind her at something.

"What is the matter, Julia?" asked Aunt Kate anxiously. "Who is it?"

Julia, who was carrying in a column of table-napkins, turned to her
sister and said, simply, as if the question had surprised her:

"It's only Freddy, Kate, and Gabriel with him."

In fact right behind her Gabriel could be seen piloting Freddy Malins
across the landing. The latter, a young man of about forty, was of
Gabriel's size and build, with very round shoulders. His face was fleshy
and pallid, touched with colour only at the thick hanging lobes of his
ears and at the wide wings of his nose. He had coarse features, a
blunt nose, a convex and receding brow, tumid and protruded lips. His
heavy-lidded eyes and the disorder of his scanty hair made him look
sleepy. He was laughing heartily in a high key at a story which he had
been telling Gabriel on the stairs and at the same time rubbing the
knuckles of his left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye.

"Good-evening, Freddy," said Aunt Julia.

Freddy Malins bade the Misses Morkan good-evening in what seemed an
offhand fashion by reason of the habitual catch in his voice and then,
seeing that Mr. Browne was grinning at him from the sideboard, crossed
the room on rather shaky legs and began to repeat in an undertone the
story he had just told to Gabriel.

"He's not so bad, is he?" said Aunt Kate to Gabriel.

Gabriel's brows were dark but he raised them quickly and answered:

"O, no, hardly noticeable."

"Now, isn't he a terrible fellow!" she said. "And his poor mother made
him take the pledge on New Year's Eve. But come on, Gabriel, into the
drawing-room."

Before leaving the room with Gabriel she signalled to Mr. Browne by
frowning and shaking her forefinger in warning to and fro. Mr. Browne
nodded in answer and, when she had gone, said to Freddy Malins:

"Now, then, Teddy, I'm going to fill you out a good glass of lemonade
just to buck you up."

Freddy Malins, who was nearing the climax of his story, waved the offer
aside impatiently but Mr. Browne, having first called Freddy Malins'
attention to a disarray in his dress, filled out and handed him a
full glass of lemonade. Freddy Malins' left hand accepted the
glass mechanically, his right hand being eng