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 society calls ease of manner, but with a certain practical self-possession quite as effective.

“I didn’t expect the girls to remember me, but I thought perhaps you might, Julia.”

Miss Trueman peered out from the shaded five-o’clock gloom so dear to Carolyn’s soul.

“I don’t seem—it’s not—why, Cousin Lorando Bean, it’s not you?”

“That’s it,” he said heartily, “that’s just exactly it. And he’s mighty glad to see some of his relations again, I can tell you. And these are Carrie and Lizzie, I suppose. Well, well, fifteen years is a long time, even to an old fellow like me, and you girls were just beginning to be young ladies when I left Connecticut. How are you all?”

If this simple greeting came like a breath of her native air to Miss True-man, it cannot be said to have had a similar effect on her nieces. Courtesy