Smith?" she resumed, through her
teeth, and the pink came back to her cheek, and her eyes deepened.
"And do you agree to stick it out, you and I shoulder to shoulder,
town or no town, ha'nts or no ha'nts; and win out?"

"Yes!" said I.

CHAPTER VII

A BRIGHT PARTICULAR STAR

Wire from The Author, New York City, to Miss S. Smith, Hyndsville,
South Carolina:

Photos received. Furniture noted. It's pretty, but is it
art?

Wire from Miss Smith to The Author:

What is Art?

Wire from The Author:

Sometimes an invention of the devil. Is your stuff Madison
Avenue or Grand Rapids? Reply.

Wire from Miss Smith:

Madison Avenue and Grand Rapids hadn't been invented when
Hynds House was furnished.

Wire from The Author:

Maybe not, but mightn't be same furniture. Have been stung
before. Can't be genuine. Too much of it.

Wire from Miss Smith:

Please yourself.

Wire from The Author:

Coming to investigate. Won't sleep in anything but pineapple
bed; won't sit in anything but carved chair; can't pray
without prie-dieu. If spurious will publicly gibbet you and
probably burn your house down. Hold southwest room my
arrival.

Alicia laughed, and cuddled those yellow slips.

"I knew this was an enchanted place!" she cried. "Oh, Sophy, it's
working! He's coming, he's coming, and he's the biggest ever, and
he's going to _stay_! Sophy, think of the advertising!"

"He will probably be detestable. Geniuses are generally horrid to
live with. And there will be something the matter with his
digestion; there is always something the matter with their
digestion."

"From swallowing all the flattery shoveled upon them, poor dears,"
Alicia explained charitably. "Don't worry about his digestion: leave
it to Mary Magdalen's waffles. Hooray! Hynds House stock is
booming!"

It was.

From the head of our firm:

_My dear Miss Smith_:

I have your interesting letter and the delightful
photographs, which have so completely charmed Mrs.
Westmacote and me that we have decided it wouldn't be good
business to miss Hynds House on our trip South this year.

Mrs. Westmacote asks if you could also accommodate a cousin
of hers, Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, a lady deeply
interested in the colonial homes of America.

You must allow me heartily to congratulate you upon your
great good fortune in fa