neral says he'll let you know when
he's ready to take up that matter. He says he hasn't got round to it
yet." Presbury apologized courteously for his intrusion and went away,
cursing under his breath. You may be sure that he made his wife and
his stepdaughter suffer for what he had been through. Two weeks more
passed--three--a month. One morning in the mail there arrived this
note--type-written upon business paper:

JAMES PRESBURY, Esqr.:

DEAR SIR:

General Siddall asks me to present his compliments and to say that he
will be pleased if you and your wife and the young lady will dine with
him at his house next Thursday the seventeenth at half-past seven sharp.

ROBERT CHANDLESS, Secretary.

The only words in longhand were the two forming the name of the
secretary. Presbury laughed and tossed the note across the breakfast
table to his wife. "You see what an ignorant creature he is," said he.
"He imagines he has done the thing up in grand style. He's the sort of
man that can't be taught manners because he thinks manners, the
ordinary civilities, are for the lower orders of people. Oh, he's a
joke, is Bill Siddall--a horrible joke."

Mrs. Presbury read and passed the letter to Mildred. She simply glanced
at it and returned it to her step-father.

"I'm just about over that last dinner," pursued Presbury. "I'll eat
little Thursday and drink less. And I'd advise you to do the same, Mrs.
Presbury."

He always addressed her as "Mrs. Presbury" because he had discovered
that when so addressed she always winced, and, if he put a certain tone
into his voice, she quivered.

"That dinner aged you five years," he went on. "Besides, you drank so
much that it went to your head and made you slather him with flatteries
that irritated him. He thought you were a fool, and no one is stupid
enough to like to be flattered by a fool."

Mrs. Presbury bridled, swallowed hard, said mildly: "We'll have to
spend the night in town again, I suppose."

"You and your daughter may do as you like," said Presbury. "I shall
return here that night. I always catch cold in strange beds."

"We might as well all return here," said Mildred. "I shall not wear
evening dress; that is, I'll wear a high-neck dress and a hat."

She had just got a new hat that was peculiarly becoming to her. She
had shown Siddall herself at the best in evening attire; another sort
of costume would give him a different view of her looks, one which she
flat