d improvements. Already these included not only
the latest phases of decoration, but various treasures brought by the
second generation from Europe, which they were wont to visit, but from
which they always contentedly returned to their little provincial town.
Whether there was some instinctive yearning, like the stirred sap of
great forests, in their wholesome pioneer blood, or whether there was
some occult fascination in the pretty town-crested hill itself, it was
still certain that the richest inhabitants always preferred to live in
Lakeville. Even the young, who left it to seek their fortune elsewhere,
came back to enjoy their success under the sylvan vaults of this vast
ancestral roof. And that was why, this 22d of December, 1870, the whole
household of Gabriel Lane was awaiting the arrival from California of
his brother, Sylvester Lane, at the old homestead which he had left
twenty years ago.

"And you don't know how he looks?" said Kitty Lane to her father.

"I do, perfectly; rather chubby, with blue eyes, curly hair, fair skin,
and blushes when you speak to him."

"Papa!"

"Eh?--Oh, well, he USED to. You see that was twenty-five years ago, when
he left here for boarding-school. He ran away from there, as I told you;
went to sea, and finally brought up at San Francisco."

"And you haven't had any picture, or photograph of him, since?"

"No--that is--I say!--you haven't, any of you, got a picture of
Sylvester, have you?" he turned in a vague parenthetical appeal to the
company of relatives and friends collected in the drawing-room after
dinner.

"Cousin Jane has; she knows all about him!"

But it appeared that Cousin Jane had only heard Susan Marckland say
that Edward Bingham had told her that he was in California when
"Uncle Sylvester" had been nearly hanged by a Vigilance Committee for
protecting a horse thief or a gambler, or some such person. This was
felt to be ineffective as a personal description.

"He's sure to wear a big beard; they all do when they first come back,"
said Amos Gunn, with metropolitan oraculousness.

"He has a big curling mustache, long silken hair, and broad shoulders,"
said Marie du Page.

There was such piquant conviction in the manner of the speaker, who was
also a very pretty girl, that they all turned towards her, and Kitty
quickly said,--

"But YOU'VE never seen him?"

"No--but--" She stopped, and, lifting one shoulder, threw her spirited
head sideways, in a pretty