"Yes; George had a note from him this morning saying his daughter would be here before dark and he would come direct from his office and meet her here in time for dinner. Isn't it delightful? You will be quite charmed with our guest, I'm sure. And about the father--tell me something of him?" Aunt Nancy inquired in her sweetest voice. "About Mr. Klutchem? Well! Yes, to be sure. Why, Klutchem! Yes, of course. A most genial and kindly man," answered Fitz, controlling himself; "a little eccentric at times I have heard, but not more so than most men of his class. Not a man of much taste, perhaps, but most generous. Would give you anything in the world he didn't want, and be so delighted when you took it off his hands. Insisted on giving me a lot of stock the other day, but of course I wouldn't take it." This was said with so grave a face that its point escaped the dear lady. "How very kind of him. Perhaps that is where his daughter gets her charm," replied Aunt Nancy, with a winning smile. There is no telling what additional mendacities regarding the Klutchem family Fitz, who had now regained his equilibrium, would have indulged in, had I not knit my eyebrows at him behind Aunt Nancy's back as a warning to the mendacitor not to mislead the dear lady, whose disappointment, I knew, would only be the greater when she met Klutchem face to face. When I had risen to take my leave Fitz excused himself for a moment and followed me into the hall. "Klutchem coming to dinner, Major, and going to bring his daughter? What the devil do you think is up? If the Colonel wasn't so useless financially I'd think Klutchem had some game up his sleeve. But if that is so, why bring his daughter? My lawyer told me to-day the assault and battery case is all settled, so it can't be that. Wonder if the Colonel has converted Klutchem as to the proper way of running a bank? No, that's nonsense! Klutchem would skin a flea and sell the tallow, no matter what the Colonel said to him. Coming to dinner! Well, that gets me!" As I shut the front door behind me and stopped for a minute on the top step overlooking the yard, I caught sight of the grocer emerging from the tunnel with a basket on his arm for Chad, who was standing below me outside his kitchen door with the half-picked duck in his hand. The settlement of "Misser Grocerman's" unpaid accounts by Miss Nancy on one of her former visits to Bedford Place had worked a double miracle--Chad no longer feared the dispenser of fine wines and other comforts, and the dispenser himself would have emptied his whole shop into Chad's kitchen and waited months for his pay had that loyal old servant permitted it. This was evident from the way in which Chad dropped the half-picked duck on a bench beside the door and hurried forward to help unpack the basket; and the deferential smile on the grocer's face as he took out one parcel after another, commenting on their quality and cheapness.