I could have cried for Oliver. There would be no "queens" in Glennings Falls; there would be no Sunday-night Lobster-Newbergs over a chafing-dish; there would be no stunning "visiting girls" whom he met at Class-Day or in Pittsburg when he was there, or in Toledo, Cleveland or Buffalo, for him to call on until eleven P.M. When I arrived in Hilton, Alec was at the station in the automobile to meet me (I had had just time to 'phone him that I was coming) and Tom who had come flying on from the West the minute Alec's shocking telegram had reached him was there too. Malcolm had caught the midnight from New York and was waiting on the veranda when we ran up under the porte-cochère. It was really a family reunion, but all the joy of seeing each other again was buried beneath the horror and consternation in our hearts. Oliver's act was astounding. We're not an erratic family. We never figure in accidents or tragedies of any kind. We hate notoriety. "And besides all the horrid publicity of a secret marriage," said Ruth, "Edith says the creature is too _common_ for anything." Ruth dangled a dainty velvet pump on the tip of her toe as she made this remark. We were gathered in the room that used to be the sitting-room, all of us--Tom, Malcolm, Edith, Alec, Ruth and I. We had been talking for an hour. "Common!" took up Edith. "She's absolutely impossible, I tell you! We stopped off to see Oliver for an hour on our way to the Green Mountains," she explained to me, "last fall, in the automobile. He didn't know we were coming. It was Sunday and he had some dreadful little frowzy-headed creature in tow, I'm sure her name was Tompkins--silly, simpering little thing--perfectly enormous pompadour and a cheap Hamburg open-work lingerie waist, over bright pink--oh, horribly cheap! I can't begin to tell you!" "Well--well--we must try to make the best of it," said Tom lightly. "Best of it!" scoffed Edith. "Well, if Oliver thinks for one minute that I am going to throw open my house to his precious Madge Tompkins he's greatly mistaken. Ruth is having a large bridge party Thursday--ten tables. This affair has simply got to be kept quiet until after that. Breck Sewall is coming up from New York to spend Sunday. You all know he's paying marked attention to Ruth, and the Sewalls--Heavens!--they're particular to a degree! Oh, we mustn't let a single word of this miserable affair leak out--not a single word! Oh, when I think of it, I just want--" "Come, come, Edith," interrupted Alec. "Gently, dear. Gently, you know." "Well, if any of you expect _me_," Edith went on, "to have that common person here, I must tell you that I can't--I simply can't! I'm not in a condition to endure it. I--" "Now look here, dear," Alec said soothingly, "no one expects you to. Everything will be exactly as you wish."