said.

Hugh clutched his hair. He told her he was searching himself through all
the crannies of his boyhood years. Yes, he remembered. He _had_
undergone the affliction. There was a birthday party away back twenty,
thirty, forty years through the mists, and _she_ would have been at it,
with her hair done in two little plaits and tied with blue ribbon. And
he had to stay away because he had whooping cough.

Lynn looked very much relieved.

"What a good thing!" she said. "It is very seldom you get it twice, so
we shan't hurt you."

"No," he said gravely, looking down on them, "you really don't look as
if you would hurt me--much. But won't you come on the verandah? And can
the gentleman alight by himself?"

Lynn came up the steps a little shyly.

But Max, though he got off his tricycle, looked a bit worried.

"He won't stand," he said. "Will you lend me your hank'fust to tie him
to the post? he's a lood horse."

"He means a blood horse," explained Lynn in a low tone; "he always
pretends his tricycle is a race-horse."

Hugh lent the handkerchief--even offered to assist in the tying.

"I'd like to have given him a feed, poor old Trike," said Max, "only--"
and he looked regretfully around the garden--"you've no grass, have
you?"

"I've no grass," said Hugh; "but did you never try him on white daisies?
It wouldn't do, of course, to feed common horses on them, but a blood
steed like yours, why, it would make his coat shine like varnish."

Max's eyes grew brilliant at the notion, and he rattled his charger up
to a bank near, that was white with the flowers, and stuck the thing's
head into it and fed him with handfuls of petals.

"Why, why," he shouted, "he's getting shinier every minute--and his
mane's growing longer and longer."

From that moment he regarded Hugh as a man and a brother.

But Lynn had got to business.

"No," she said when offered a chair--"oh, no, thank you, we can't
stay--Miss Bibby doesn't know we've come. But will you please deal with
Larkin?"

"Deal with Larkin?" Hugh repeated.

"Yes, he's Octavius Smith, not Septimus, and much better. Mamma deals
with him, and his bacon is only elevenpence, and he'll always bring your
letters, too."

"Bacon!" said Hugh, hungrily. "I'd deal with any one who has bacon if it
is fried and eggs are thrown in with it."

"Oh," said Lynn, "he never throws them; they're always packed very
carefully in sawdust. And he doesn't mind how often he comes with the