nhallow. The rest made a blind guess at it, for the most
part, and the younger Penhallows let it go at loose cousinship.

In this instance it was Alice Penhallow, daughter of "young" John
Penhallow, who was to be married. Alice was a nice girl, but she and
her wedding only pertain to this story in so far as they furnish a
background for Lucinda; hence nothing more need be said of her.

On the afternoon of her wedding day--the Penhallows held to the
good, old-fashioned custom of evening weddings with a rousing dance
afterwards--Penhallow Grange was filled to overflowing with guests who
had come there to have tea and rest themselves before going down to
"young" John's. Many of them had driven fifty miles. In the big
autumnal orchard the younger fry foregathered and chatted and coquetted.
Up-stairs, in "old" Mrs. John's bedroom, she and her married daughters
held high conclave. "Old" John had established himself with his sons and
sons-in-law in the parlour, and the three daughters-in-law were making
themselves at home in the blue sitting-room, ear-deep in harmless family
gossip. Lucinda and Romney Penhallow were also there.

Thin Mrs. Nathaniel Penhallow sat in a rocking chair and toasted her
toes at the grate, for the brilliant autumn afternoon was slightly
chilly and Lucinda, as usual, had the window open. She and plump Mrs.
Frederick Penhallow did most of the talking. Mrs. George Penhallow being
rather out of it by reason of her newness. She was George Penhallow's
second wife, married only a year. Hence, her contributions to the
conversation were rather spasmodic, hurled in, as it were, by dead
reckoning, being sometimes appropriate and sometimes savouring of a
point of view not strictly Penhallowesque.

Romney Penhallow was sitting in a corner, listening to the chatter of
the women, with the inscrutable smile that always vexed Mrs. Frederick.
Mrs. George wondered within herself what he did there among the women.
She also wondered just where he belonged on the family tree. He was not
one of the uncles, yet he could not be much younger than George.

"Forty, if he is a day," was Mrs. George's mental dictum, "but a very
handsome and fascinating man. I never saw such a splendid chin and
dimple."

Lucinda, with bronze-colored hair and the whitest of skins, defiant of
merciless sunlight and revelling in the crisp air, sat on the sill of
the open window behind the crimson vine leaves, looking out into the
garden, where d