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 in round beds at home, you wouldn’t mention those poor little stalks in the pots.”

Mrs. Ranger laughed, and directed her searching, level glance at the older woman, who combined in her comely, undisguised middle age something at once more matronly and more childish than the analytic authoress could ever find in her own mirror.

“Aha!” she cried, “then you are no friend of dear old Horace, after all, Miss Trueman! He and I, you see—”

The relation of these two urbanites was revealed no further, for a bustle in the little hall drew attention to a newcomer unknown not only to the guests but evidently to the hostesses, who rose, smiling uncertainly, as a portly, broad-shouldered man with iron-gray hair made his way through the group about the samovar.

“I’ll have to introduce myself, I see,” he began, not precisely with what an exigent