The young man was wiping his weak eyes upon a voluminous silk handkerchief which had evidently seen long service since its last washing. "Dear Uncle Ebeneezer," he breathed, running his long, bony fingers through his hair. "I cannot tell you how heavily this blow falls upon me. Dear Uncle Ebeneezer was a distinguished patron of the arts. Our country needs more men like him, men with fine appreciation, vowed to the service of the Ideal. If you will pardon me, I will now retire to my apartment and remain there a short time in seclusion." So saying, he ran lightly upstairs, as one who was thoroughly at home. "Who in--" began Harlan. "Mr. Harold Vernon Perkins, poet," said Dick. "He's got his rhyming dictionary and all his odes with him." "Without knowing," said Dorothy, "I should have thought his name was Harold or Arthur or Paul. He looks it." "It wa'n't my fault," interjected the old lady, "that he come. I didn't even sense that he was on the same train as me till I hired the carriage at the junction an' he clim' in. He said he might as well come along as we was both goin' to the same place, an' it would save him walkin', an' not cost me no more than 't would anyway." While she was speaking, she had taken off her outer layer of drapery and her bonnet. "I'll just put these things in my room, my dear," she said to Dorothy, "an' then I'll come back an' talk to you. I like your looks first-rate." "Who in--," said Harlan, again, as the old lady vanished into one of the lower wings. "Mrs. Belinda something," answered Dick. "I don't know who she's married to now. She's had bad luck with her husbands." Mrs. Carr, deeply troubled, was leaning against the wall in the hall, and Dick patted her hand soothingly. "Don't you fret," he said, cheerily; "I'm here to see you through." "That being the case," remarked Harlan, with a certain acidity in his tone, "I'll go back to my work." The old lady appeared again as Harlan slammed the library door, and suggested that Dick should go away. "Polite hint," commented Mr. Chester, not at all disturbed. "See you later." He went out, whistling, with his cap on the back of his head and his hands in his pockets. "I reckon you're a new relative, be n't you?" asked the lady guest, eyeing Dorothy closely. "I disremember seein' you before." "I am Mrs. Carr," repeated Dorothy, mechanically. "My husband, Harlan Carr, is Uncle Ebeneezer's nephew, and the house was left to him." "Do tell!" ejaculated the other. "I wouldn't have thought it of Ebeneezer. I'm Belinda Dodd, relict of Benjamin Dodd, deceased. How many are there here, my dear?" "Miss St. Clair, Mr. Chester, Mrs. Holmes and her three children, Uncle Israel Skiles, and you two, besides Mr. Carr, Mrs. Smithers, and myself." "Is that all?" asked the visitor, in evident surprise. "All!" repeated Dorothy. "Isn't that enough?"