ining with us that night, as was Doctor
Richard Geddes.

Mr. Jelnik's presence had the effect of lightening The Author's
gloom. His eyes brightened, his dejection changed into alertness,
and there began that subtle game of under-the-surface thrust and
parry that seemed inevitable when the two met. Mr. Westmacote
listened with quiet enjoyment. His dinner was to his taste, Hynds
House more than came up to his expectations, Alicia was Cinderella
after the fairy's wand had passed over her, _I_ had ceased to be a
mere person and become a personage; and he found here such men as
Doctor Geddes, The Author, and Nicholas Jelnik. The Head smiled at
his wife, and was at peace with the world.

Miss Emmeline had already discovered the Lowestoft and Spode pieces
in our built-in cupboards; that there were two perfect apostle jugs
in the cabinet in the hall: that our Chelsea figures were lovelier
than any she had heretofore seen; and that Hynds House, in which
everything was genuine, had an atmosphere that appealed to her soul,
or maybe matched her clear-green aura. Anyhow, the house reached out
for Miss Emmeline as with hands and laid its spell upon her
enduringly.

She sat beside me, with Alicia's pet album of Confederate generals
on her knees.

"I never thought I'd have a sentimental regard for rebels," she
confessed. "But, oh, they were gallant and romantic figures, when
one looks at their old photographs here in Hynds House. I am
Massachusetts to the bone, but I don't want to hear 'Marching
through Georgia' while I'm here!"

Mr. Jelnik, overhearing her, laughed. "Perhaps I may find for you
something more in keeping with Hynds House," he said, and sauntered
over to the old piano. Unexpectedly it came to life. And he began to
sing:

It was the silent, solemn hour
When night and morning meet,
In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,
And stood at William's feet.
Her face was like an April morn
Clad in a wintry cloud:
And clay-cold was her lily hand,
That held her sable shroud.

The Author shaded his eyes with his hand, his gaze riveted upon the
singer. Alicia leaned forward, lips parted, face like an uplifted
flower, eyes large with wonder and delight. The Confederate generals
slid from Miss Emmeline's lap and lay face downward, forgotten.
Westmacote's faded little wife, who had no children, crept closer to
her big husband; and gently, unob