nce and later in his conversation; but
this was the first time the hero was to be presented in person.

"What's he like, Rose?" asked Myrna, arriving breathlessly with the
chafing-dish. Myrna was twelve and seemed to labor under the constant
apprehension that she was missing something, due no doubt to the fact
that she was invariably dispatched on an errand when anything interesting
was pending.

"Don't know," said Rose; "the hall was pitch-dark. He's got a nice voice,
though, and a dandy handshake."

"I bid to sit next to him at supper," said Myrna, hugging herself in
ecstasy.

"You can if you promise not to take two helps of the Welsh rabbit."

Myrna refused to negotiate on any such drastic terms. "Are we going to
have a fire in the sitting-room?" she asked.

"I don't know whether there is any more wood. Papa Claude promised to
order some. You go see while I set the table. I've a good notion to call
over the fence and ask Fan Loomis to come to supper."

"Oh, Rose, _please_ do!" cried Myrna. "I won't take but one help."

Cass, in the meanwhile, was making his guest at home in the sitting-room
by permitting him to be useful.

"You can light the lamp," he said, "while I make a fire."

Quin was willing to oblige, but the lamp was not. It put up a stubborn
resistance to all efforts to coax it to do its duty.

"I bet it hasn't been filled," said Cass; then, after the fashion of
mankind, he lifted his voice in supplication to the nearest feminine ear:

"Oh! Ro--ose!"

His older sister, coming to the rescue, agreed with his diagnosis of the
case, and with Quin's assistance bore the delinquent lamp to the kitchen.

"Hope you don't mind being made home-folks," she said, patting the puffs
over her ears and looking at him sideways.

"Mind?" said Quin. "If you knew how good all this looks to me! It's the
first touch of home I've had in years. Wish you'd let me set the
table--I'm strong on K. P."

"Help yourself," said Rose; "the plates are in the pantry and the silver
in the sideboard drawer. Wait a minute!"

She took a long apron from behind the door and handed it to him.

"How do these ends buckle up?" he asked, helplessly holding out the
straps of the bib.

"They button around your little neck," she told him, smiling. "Turn
round; I'll fix it."

"Why turn round?" said Quin.

Their eyes met in frank challenge.

"You silly boy!" she said--but she put her arms around his neck and
fastened the bib just t