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30 with Chum nearby, in the comfortable wicker chairs which stood about on the grass with which the garden emphasized its paths, permitting it to grow as a small lawn on the west side of the house. Mr. and Mrs. Moulton were just coming toward them through the broad path which led directly from the side gate.

Mr. Moulton was not above medium height. His hair was grizzled, as was his short-cropped moustache; he stooped and peered at the world through large-lensed glasses, as if he regarded everything, collectively and separately, as specimens. Mrs. Moulton, on the other hand, carried herself so erect that she might have been protesting that the specimens were not worth while. No one had ever seen her dishevelled, nor dressed with less than elegant appropriateness to the time and occasion. The result was that she conveyed an effect of elderliness though she was not quite fifty years old, which is young in this period of the world’s progress. Her light-brown hair showed no thread of gray, her aristocratic face was still but lightly lined, and her complexion was fair, yet one thought of her as of a person growing old, though doing so with great nicety.

The three Garden girls sprang up to meet these