ETHEL was reading a letter, Ellery and Cherry having brought the mail up from the post-office. Ellery had now been at Clover Lodge a fortnight and during that time we had fished (for bull heads this time), had gone on long tramps, had read to each other, and had played many a game of tennis, and while we could not say that Ellery was in a fair way to propose to Cherry, he was hard hit.

The glamour of the place had appealed to him and neither he nor Cherry had any intention of going back until we went in September.

Minerva had shown signs of homesickness, and one day we had let her and James go to Springfield to spend the day, and after her return she had said,

“City ain’t what it was,” which we had taken to be a most encouraging sign. Nearly three months out of New York and still happy. Who would have predicted it?

Ethel dropped the letter in her lap and said, “What are we going to do, Philip? This letter is from Madge Warden, and she and Tom are going to a place in Vermont to try it on the recommendation of a friend, and Madge asks if it would be convenient to stop off on the way up instead of on the way back. She says that if we could find a shack for them here, Tom wouldn’t care to go to Vermont.”

“Well, of course, have ’em come.”

“Yes, but she wants to come this Friday for over Sunday, and we’ve invited the Benedicts for over Sunday.”

I thought a minute.

“It would be great to have them all here, because they are so congenial, but unless you and I gave up our room and slept in hammocks—”

“Why couldn’t you and Ellery sleep in hammocks and then I could let Madge share my room with me and give the Benedicts the spare room?”

“And what would become of Tom?”

“Oh, that’s so,” said Ethel. “I’m afraid we can’t do it.”

“They’s a sofa in the woodshed,” said Minerva, who had been dusting the sitting room and always interested in household problems, had stopped at the open window outside of which we were sitting.

“So there is. Good for you, Minerva,” said I, in spite of a warning look from Ethel, who says that at times I am too colloquial with Minerva.

Ethel and I went around to the woodshed to look at it. It was across two rafters, but with help from James, who was busy in the vicinity, I got it down.

“So I’m to write and tell them all to come? Isn’t this going to be a good deal of a drain on your pocketbook, Philip?”

“We can’t do worse than go home broke and then I’ll begin again.”

“‘Easy come, easy go,’” quoted Ethel, with a half sigh.

“Don’t you want ’em to come? Will it be too hard on you?”

“No, no, we’ll make them understand it’s a picnic, but you will have to hustle in the fall.”

“Well, hustling never killed anybody, and we’ll have a summer to remember. It’s a lucky thing that James is so handy. He can help in the kitchen.”

And so the sofa was brought into the house and dusted, and the Wardens were implored to come up and told to take the same train that the Benedicts were coming on, and the haying season being practically over, we were able to engage Bert’s double team and his three-seated wagon, and Friday afternoon we all went down to meet them.

No, not all. We left Minerva behind. She and James had to prepare a dinner for eight.

There was no accident on the way down, and we arrived at the station several minutes before the arrival of the train.

At last we heard the whistle below the bridge and then it steamed in and we took up our station around the parlour car and prepared to greet our guests.

But the only one to get off was a well-setup young fellow in irreproachable apparel, and he did not belong to us.

“Why, of course, they never would have taken a parlour car. The Benedicts might, but the Wardens wouldn’t,” said Ethel, and we looked down the platform to see whether they had alighted. But they had not. Our guests had not come.

“Isn’t it too provoking,” said Cherry, sympathetically to Ethel.

“It really is,” said Ethel. “That dinner will be stone cold if we wait for the next train.”

“When is the next train?” asked Ellery.

“In two hours,” I replied. “They won’t come to-night, though. Something happened to Tom at the last minute and he asked the rest to wait and they waited. We’ll get a telegram saying so. Everybody obeys his will always.”

The irreproachable stranger had been walking around as if he was looking for somebody. He now approached me with uplifted hat.

“Would you be so good as to tell me whether Mr. Vernon lives near here?”

“I am Mr. Vernon.”

He coloured, stammered and said,

“I am Talcott Hepburn, and I am afraid that I’ve been led into an unpardonably rude act.”

“Are you the son of Talcott Hepburn, the art collector?” said I.

“Yes,—oh, you know him then,” said he, relieved. “My friend Tom Warden took the liberty of bringing me along with him—only”—here he paused. “He has missed the train.”

I understood in a minute. Tom Warden is an artist, and he is the soul of hospitality. He knows Ethel and me as well as he knows his fathe............