a great deal of all
matters appertaining to his profession, deciphered some shorthand
characters which promised enlightenment. He passed no comment,
however, but pocketed the book, scribbled a few lines on a sheet of
paper bearing the name of the hotel, and intrusted coat and letter to
an attendant.

Uncle Horace, after a momentary qualm, gave instructions to the
head-waiter in the approved manner of a trust magnate.

"We're up against it now, Louisa," he whispered confidentially to his
wife, "so let's have one wonderful night if we never have another."

Mrs. Curtis nodded her complete agreement. She would have sanctioned a
mortgage on her home rather than forego any material part of an
experience which would command the breathless attention of many a
future gathering of matrons and maids in faraway Bloomington.

Lady Hermione received her visitors with a shy cordiality which won
their prompt approval. Aunt Louisa had been perplexed by indecision as
to what she was to say or how she was to act when she met the bride,
but one glance of her keen, motherly eyes at the blushing and timid
girl resolved any doubts on both scores.

"God bless you, my dear!" she said, throwing her arms around Hermione's
neck and kissing her heartily. "Perhaps everything is for the best,
and, anyway, you've married into a family of honest men and true women."

"Ma'am," said Uncle Horace, when his turn came to be introduced,
"strange as it may sound, I know less about my nephew than you
yourself, but if he resembles his father in character as he does in
appearance, you've chosen well, and let me add, ma'am, that _he_ seems
to have made a first-rate selection at sight."

Of course, such congratulations were woefully misplaced, but Hermione
was too well-bred to reveal any cause for disquietude other than the
normal embarrassment any young woman would display in like conditions.

Curtis, too, put in a quiet word which threw light on the situation.

"As I told you a few minutes since, I was not aware that my uncle and
aunt were in New York," he said. "I cannot even guess how they came to
find me so opportunely, and we have hardly been able to say a word to
each other yet, because they were in the thick of the police inquiry
when I met them in my hotel."

"Why, that's the easiest thing," declared Aunt Louisa, rejoicing in a
long-looked-for opportunity to hear her own voice in full volume.
"This young gentleman here," and she nodded at