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 sideration which John did not share. Perhaps that was why I liked Mrs. Ellerton better than John did. You can't very well help liking folks who like you, especially when they seem to be rather superior, critical sort of people. And when she offered us Nestor cigarettes in the parlor, even John softened and discovered, as he afterward admitted, that "the genealogical fiend" was not quite without humanity.

There was an open wood fire in the parlor and a generally homelike air which we footsore travellers found much to our taste.

"How Eastern it seems!" said I to Miss Lamb, as we lighted our cigarettes.

"Dick doesn't mean Oriental," John put in. "It is the Atlantic seaboard that he has in mind."

"It does seem like home," I maintained.

"We are so glad to hear you say so," said Miss Lamb. "We like, of all things, to hear any praise of our own hired house."