lican.

"The best we can do is to descend irrelevantly from Washington,
Hamilton, or Jefferson," said Isabel. "Only we have not yet reached the
stage where we dare to acknowledge it on our coat-of-arms. The illusions
of the American youth must be preserved. Even the fact that one of our
Presidents was a son of Aaron Burr is still to be read only in the great
volume of unwritten history. My father was a sort of walking edition of
that work."

"That is new to me!" The duke was quite famous as a student of history,
and took a personal interest in America, having been over twice in
search of big game. He asked her many questions; but his interest in the
general subject was as nothing to the enthusiasm she aroused by a chance
allusion to the chicken-ranch. The duke was agricultural above all
things; he had a model estate bristling with scientific improvement. He
was enchanted at Isabel's picture of her wire-enclosed "runs" and yards
containing industrious chickens of all ages, engaged, however
innocently, in the pursuit of wealth. Isabel, when she chose, could
invest any subject with glamour, and her account, delivered in tones
notably accelerated, of the snow-white, red-crowned flocks, their
aristocratic little white mansions, the luxurious nurseries for the
"chicks," and the astonishing and costly banquets with which they were
daily regaled, was so lively that the duke vowed he would raise Leghorns
forthwith. He asked her so many practical questions, taking copious
notes, and inevitably embracing California ranch life in its entirety,
in his thirst for knowledge, that Isabel had no more dancing that night;
but she made an enduring impression upon the eminently practical mind of
her host.

It was quite two hours after supper, and Isabel was beginning to reflect
with some humor upon the brevity of all illusions, when Hexam and Miss
Thangue appeared simultaneously and announced that the Capheaton guests
were leaving. Hexam looked sulky and suspicious. Flora was smiling.

"For the first time--" she murmured.

Isabel and the duke laughed outright, and then shook hands warmly.

"When I go home we can correspond," she said to him, "and I will tell
you all the new kinks. We are always improving."

"The duke looked positively rejuvenated," said Hexam, spitefully, as
they walked down the corridor. "Have you discovered the elixir of life
in California, and promised him the prescription."

"No," said Isabel, demurely. "I have