ed on you last Thursday afternoon, didn't he, Cally?" said
Looloo, laughing, with a little face for her daring.

"One call, my dear child!"

"You went motoring with him on Friday," said Theodore, gravely, "and
stopped for tea at the Country Club at 6.20, you taking chocolate--"

"One motor-ride!"

"You dined with him at the Arlington on Monday night, table decorations
being small diamond necklaces--"

"Good heavens!" laughed Carlisle, coloring a little. "All this is
terribly circumstantial! I had no idea my movements were--"

"Movement is useless--don't move, lady! We have you covered--"

"There, there, children!--stop showing your jealousy," laughed Mrs.
Cooney; and her eyes rested with a brief wistfulness on the shining
niece who plumed eagle's feathers for flights where her daughters would
never follow. "You'd all give your eye-teeth to be half as pretty and
attractive as Cally ..."

"Yes'm," said Chas. "Well, then, Cally, have one more sardine, _please_.
Nothing on earth for the complexion like these fat saline fellows that
mother catches fresh every morning with her little hook and line.--Mind,
_Loo_! You're joggling The Bowl."

Carlisle was hardly to be overwhelmed by the Cooneys' teasing, nor
perhaps was she seriously displeased by it. Even less did the detail of
her eccentric cousins' knowledge surprise her. If there was a fight or a
fire, a _bon mot_ launched or a heart broken, money made or a death
died, it invariably happened that one of the Cooneys was "just
passing."...

In the middle of the table stood an object of shiny green crockery,
which seemed to be a cross between a fruit-dish and a vase. Most of the
table service was quite familiar to Carlisle, not a little of it having
started life as Christmas presents from the Heths. But this crockery
piece was new, and, upon Chas's admonition, its shiny hideousness caught
and riveted her attention.

"Aunt Rose Hopwood's parting gift," said Tee Wee, softly, following her
fascinated gaze. "Oh, Cally, ain't it boo'ful!"

"Theodore," said his mother, quite sharply, "I don't think your stay at
the University has improved your manners."

Theodore colored abruptly and deeply. "Why, I--I was only funning,
mother."

"I think that's a very poor sort of funning. And this applies to you,
too, Charles."

"Yes'm," said Charles, starting.

The eldest-born made no other reply to his mother, nor did Theodore:
meekness under parental reproof being another of