etail the story she had related to Mr. Corliss. Laura had been
quick.

Hedrick passed a variegated morning among comrades. He obtained
prestige as having a father like-to-die, but another boy turned up
who had learned to chew tobacco. Then Hedrick was pronounced
inferior to others in turning "cartwheels," but succeeded in a
wrestling match for an apple, which he needed. Later, he was
chased empty-handed from the rear of an ice-wagon, but greatly
admired for his retorts to the vociferous chaser: the other boys
rightly considered that what he said to the ice-man was much more
horrible than what the ice-man said to him. The ice-man had a fair
vocabulary, but it lacked pliancy; seemed stiff and fastidious
compared with the flexible Saxon in which Hedrick sketched a
family tree lacking, perhaps, some plausibility as having produced
even an ice-man, but curiously interesting zoologically.

He came home at noon with the flush of this victory new upon his
brow. He felt equal to anything, and upon Cora's appearing at
lunch with a blithe, bright air and a new arrangement of her hair,
he opened a fresh campaign with ill-omened bravado.

"Ear-muffs in style for September, are they?" he inquired in
allusion to a symmetrical and becoming undulation upon each side
of her head. "Too bad Ray Vilas can't come any more; he'd like
those, I know he would."

Cora, who was talking jauntily to her mother, went on without
heeding. She affected her enunciation at times with a slight lisp;
spoke preciously and over-exquisitely, purposely mincing the
letter R, at the same time assuming a manner of artificial
distinction and conscious elegance which never failed to produce
in her brother the last stage of exasperation. She did this now.
Charming woman, that dear Mrs. Villard, she prattled. "I met her
downtown this morning. Dear mamma, you should but have seen her
delight when she saw _me_. She was but just returned from Bar
Harbor----"

"`Baw-hawbaw'!" Poor Hedrick was successfully infuriated
immediately. "What in thunder is `Baw-hawbaw'? Mrs. Villawd!
Baw-hawbaw! Oh, maw!"

"She had no idea she should find _me_ in town, she said," Cora ran
on, happily. "She came back early on account of the children
having to be sent to school. She has such adorable
children--beautiful, dimpled babes----"

"SLUSH! SLUSH! LUV-A-LY SLUSH!"

"--And her dear son, Egerton Villard, he's grown to be such a
comely lad, and he has the most charming courtly man