my way
through Pokip I gathered up a beautiful two-seated trap with a driver,
thinking in my ignorance that I should make a big hit by driving the
fair one over the hills and far away. The horses were wonderful; I found
out later that they were the finest hearse horses in Poughkeepsie. She
was an awfully funny girl, that girl. She always used both 'shall' and
'will,' being afraid to take chances with either verb, an idea I'm often
tempted to adopt myself."

"It's ingenious, at any rate. But how did the drive go?"

"Oh, it didn't! She said she couldn't go with me alone unless I _was_ or
_were_ her cousin. It was against the rules. So we agreed to be cousins
and she went off to find the dean or some awful autocrat like that, to
spring the delightful surprise, that her long-lost cousin from Kalamazoo
had suddenly appeared, and might she go driving with him. That was her
idea, I assure you,--my own depravity could suggest nothing more
euphonious than Canajoharie. And would you believe it, the consent being
forthcoming, she came back and said she wouldn't go--absolutely
declined! She rested on the fine point in ethics that, while it was not
improper to tell the fib, it would be highly sinful to take advantage of
it! So we strolled over the campus and she showed me the sights, while
those funeral beasts champed their bits at so much per hour. She was a
Connecticut girl, and I made a note of the incident as illustrating a
curious phase of the New England conscience."

While they were gayly ringing the changes on these adventures, steps
sounded on the veranda.

"That's Mrs. Owen and my grandfather," said Sylvia.

"I wonder--" began Dan, grave at once.

"You're wondering," said Sylvia, "whether my grandfather will remember
you."

She recalled very well her grandfather's unusual seriousness after
Harwood's visit; it seemed wiser not to bring the matter again to his
attention.

"I think it would be better if he didn't," replied Dan, relieved that
she had anticipated his thought.

"I was only a messenger boy anyhow and I didn't know what my errand was
about that day."

"He doesn't remember faces well," said Sylvia, "and wouldn't be likely
to know you."

As Mrs. Owen asked Dan to her office at once, it was unnecessary for
Sylvia to introduce him to her grandfather.

Alone with Mrs. Owen, Dan's business was quickly transacted. She
produced an abstract of title and bade him read aloud the description of
the property