at once patronized her. "Oh, you don't, my dear? Well, let me
tell you that bank stock waves in the air like a banner. You would see
it if you were her."

"Well, she don't have to care for his money."

"Oh, no, of course she don't have to. But they are just the ones that
do, my dear. They are just the ones that do."

"Well, it's a shame."

"Oh, of course it's a shame."

The woman who had assembled the corps said to one at her side: "Oh, the
commonest kind of people, my dear, the commonest kind. The father is a
regular farmer, you know. He drives oxen. Such language! You can really
hear him miles away bellowing at those oxen. And the girls are shy,
half-wild things--oh, you have no idea! I saw one of them yesterday when
we were out driving. She dodged as we came along, for I suppose she was
ashamed of her frock, poor child! And the mother--well, I wish you
could see her! A little, old, dried-up thing. We saw her carrying a pail
of water from the well, and, oh, she bent and staggered dreadfully, poor
thing!"

"And the gate to their front yard, it has a broken hinge, you know. Of
course, that's an awful bad sign. When people let their front gate hang
on one hinge you know what that means."

After gazing again at the group at the court, the youngest member of the
corps said, "Well, he's a good tennis player anyhow."

The others smiled indulgently. "Oh, yes, my dear, he's a good tennis
player."

CHAPTER XIII.

One day Hollanden said, in greeting, to Hawker, "Well, he's gone."

"Who?" asked Hawker.

"Why, Oglethorpe, of course. Who did you think I meant?"

"How did I know?" said Hawker angrily.

"Well," retorted Hollanden, "your chief interest was in his movements, I
thought."

"Why, of course not, hang you! Why should I be interested in his
movements?"

"Well, you weren't, then. Does that suit you?"

After a period of silence Hawker asked, "What did he--what made him go?"

"Who?"

"Why--Oglethorpe."

"How was I to know you meant him? Well, he went because some important
business affairs in New York demanded it, he said; but he is coming
back again in a week. They had rather a late interview on the porch last
evening."

"Indeed," said Hawker stiffly.

"Yes, and he went away this morning looking particularly elated. Aren't
you glad?"

"I don't see how it concerns me," said Hawker, with still greater
stiffness.

In a walk to the lake that afternoon Hawker and Miss Fanhall found
themse