Cousin Jinny gathered up the pennies and dropped them thoughtfully into the little gold-linked purse on her chatelaine. For years she had been contributing a yearly subsidy to the ever increasing family of a former gondolier, the unforgotten grace of whose slender legs had haunted her memory for twenty years, during which period she had been the recipient of annual announcements of twins and triplets, whose arrivals invariably punctuated peculiarly unremunerative years. “That man,” she said, referring to Trench and not the gondolier, “that man is an anarchist.” Mrs. Eaton had a settled conviction that all undesirable persons were anarchists. To her nebulous vision innumerable immigrant ships were continually unloading anarchists in bulk, as merchantmen might unship consignments of Sea Island cotton or Jamaica rum; and every fresh appearance of the social unwashed was to her an advent of an atom from these incendiary cargoes. “I hope you were careful about your receipt, Diana,” said Jacob Eaton, stopping to light a cigarette at the tall candelabrum on the piano. “How far did your admirer walk to bring that consignment of pennies?” “My admirer?” Diana shot a scornful glance at him. “I call it an intrusion.” “Did he walk over from that little shop at Cross-Roads?” Mrs. Eaton asked. “I seem to remember a shop there.” “It’s seven miles,” said Colonel Royall, speaking for the first time, “and the roads are bad. I think he is merely scrupulously honest, Diana,” he added; “I was watching his face.” Diana flushed under her father’s eye. “I suppose he is,” she said reluctantly, “but, pshaw--six cents! He could have handed it to a servant.” “Do you send the servants there?” Colonel Royall asked pointedly. “No,” she admitted reluctantly, “I suppose he rarely sees any one from here, but there was Kingdom at the door.” “Who insisted on his seeing you, you remember,” objected her father; “the soul of Kingdom-Come is above six pennies.” “Well, so is mine!” exclaimed Diana pettishly. “Seven miles in red clay mud to see you,” mocked Jacob Eaton, smiling at her. “Nonsense!” she retorted. “I don’t see why you take that tone, Jacob,” warned his mother a little nervously. “I call it bad taste; he couldn’t presume to--to--” “To walk seven miles?” her son laughed “My dear lady, I’d walk seventeen to see Diana.” “My dear courtier, throw down your cloak in the mud and let me walk upon it,” retorted Diana scornfully. “I have thrown down, instead, my heart,” he replied in a swift undertone.