the honors were with Alicia.

The Author's secretary was pacing up and down the garden when we
reached home, with Potty Black careering after him and every now and
then dashing into the shrubbery to put to flight Beautiful Dog, who
was also enamored of the young man with the nice smile and the good
brown eyes. He had a great affection for animals, as they seemed to
understand.

Beautiful Dog laid aside, for his sake, his fear of white people,
and slunk after him fawningly, wagging what did duty as a tail, and
showing every tooth in an ear-to-ear grin. At sight of us, Beautiful
Dog gave a dismal yelp and disappeared.

"Let's sit in the library," coaxed the secretary. "I want you
please to allow me to hold in my hands your copy of 'Purchas his
Pilgrimes.' The Author dreams about that book out loud. Oh, yes,
another thing I want to ask you: what sort of perfume do you use,
and where do you get it?"

My scalp prickled.

"I noticed it in the upper hall last night," went on the secretary,
innocently. "It was pervasive, but at the same time so delicate, so
elusive, that I couldn't determine what it was. I am very sensitive
to perfumes."

"So are we," Alicia told him. "And if what you think you smelled is
what we think we smell, it isn't a--a regular perfume. It's a--a--a
something that belongs to Hynds House."

The library was flooded with the ruddy light of sunset. Every bit of
color in the big room stood out against a golden background, and a
great golden spear fell across the dark, brooding face of Freeman
Hynds above the old tiled fireplace. In that rosy glow he seemed to
look down at us with living eyes.

"Is that so?" The secretary stopped; and his head went up and his
nose wrinkled. For the "something that belonged to Hynds House"
walked upon the air with invisible feet.

CHAPTER VIII

PEACOCKS AND IVORY

"Sophy, do you remember the night we talked it over, and decided to
come here, and you were afraid of the new soil's effect upon
yourself?"

"Of course. Why?"

"Oh, because."

"Because why?"

"Just because.--I wish to gracious you had a little saving vanity,
Sophy Smith!"

"And what, then, is _this_?" I asked ironically, and rustled my
skirts. For the Westmacotes were to arrive that night, in time for
dinner, and I, standing before the mirror in my room, was what
Alicia called "really dressed" for the first time in my life.

"From your point of view, this is a business necessity. From