olding on
to herself, so that she might not show in face or gesture the wildness of
her joy.

"You won't mind, will you, Frances?" she asked.

Aunt Frances rose and shook out her amber skirts "I shall of course be
much disappointed," she pitched her voice high and spoke with chill
stateliness, "I shall be very much disappointed that neither you nor Mary
will be with us for the winter. And I shall have to cross alone. But
Grace can meet me in London. She's going there to see Constance, and I
shall stay for a while and start the young people socially. I should
think you'd want to see Constance, Mary."

Mary drew a quick breath. "I do want to see her--but I have to think
about Barry--and for this winter, at least, my place--is here."

Then from the back of the room spoke Porter Bigelow.

"What's the name of your lodger?"

"Roger Poole."

"There are Pooles in Gramercy Park," said Aunt Frances. "I wonder if
he's one of them."

Mary shook her head. "He's from the South."

"I should think," said Porter, slowly, "that you'd want to know something
of him besides his bank reference before you took him into your house."

"Why?" Mary demanded.

"Because he might be--a thief, or a rascal," Porter spoke hotly.

Over the heads of the others their eyes met. "He is neither," said Mary.
"I know a gentleman when I see one, Porter."

Then the temper of the redhead flamed. "Oh, do you? Well, for my part I
wish that you were going to Nice, Mary."

CHAPTER III

_In Which a Lonely Wayfarer Becomes Monarch of All He Surveys; and in
Which One Who Might Have Been Presented as the Hero of This Tale is
Forced, Through No Fault of His Own, to Take His Chances With the Rest._

When Roger Poole came a week later to the big house on the hill, it was
on a rainy day. He carried his own bag, and was let in at the lower
door by Susan Jenks.

Her smiling brown face gave him at once a sense of homeyness. She led
the way through the wide hall and up the front stairs, crisp and
competent in her big white apron and black gown.

As he followed her, Roger was aware that the house had lost its
effulgence. The flowers were gone, and the radiance, and the stairs
that the silken ladies had once ascended showed, at closer range,
certain signs of shabbiness. The carpet was old and mended. There was
a chilliness about the atmosphere, as if the fire, too, needed mending.

But when Susan Jenks opened the door of the Tower Roo