“_Whose_ recognition?” Not hers, the critic of the rocking-chair seemed to say. But Mar took no notice. “And where’s that book he was boasting about six months ago? The one that was going to shed such valuable new light on the—the—Jugginses of No Man’s Land. So far as I can see by the feeble light of the female intellect, the Jugginses still sit in the dark. Haven’t you found that roll of seersucker yet, Hildegarde? Upon my soul!”—faster flew the needles, harder rocked the chair—“compared with you a snail is a cross between an acrobat and a hurricane.” The girl only laughed. “Here’s the horrid stripey stuff, hiding at the very bottom!” She laid the roll aside, and with a neat precision proceeded to put back all the things she had taken out, for Hildegarde knew, if not properly packed, the ottoman would overflow. “Now, make haste,” urged her mother, “if anything so alien is possible to you. I’m certainly not going to read to you while you’re fussing about on the other side of the room.” Then, not deterred in her unswerving attempt to improve the shining hour, Mrs. Mar flung a quick look at the bent back of her husband, and proceeded to put in the time in clearing up one of his multitudinous misapprehensions. “What _I_ can’t forgive Jack Galbraith is his ingratitude to you.” Again Mar moved a little in his creaking chair, but halted this side speech. Hildegarde, busily repacking, turned her blonde head toward her mother, saying: “Ingratitude! Why, he’s perfectly devoted to papa! That’s why I like Mr. Galbraith.” “Devoted, is he? Well, he’s got odd ways of showing it. When he was a troublesome, inquisitive little pest, he used to reveal his devotion by coming twice every year to turn our house upside down, and get our boys into every conceivable mischief. Glad enough to plant himself here then, when nobody else would be bothered with him. But his devotion to your father doesn’t carry him the length of coming to see him nowadays. Why, it’s fourteen years since Jack Galbraith darkened these doors, and—” “Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were to darken them very soon,” said Mr. Mar. “What!” said Mrs. Mar, so surprised she allowed the rocking-chair to slow down. Hildegarde stood transfixed, with the top of the ottoman arrested, half shut. “Yes,” said Mr. Mar, steadily, and in complete good faith, as he slipped the diagram into the envelop. “I’m expecting him out here this spring.” “Jack is coming!” Hildegarde said to her heart. “Wonderful Jack is coming! Dear Jack! Dear, _dear_ Jack! Oh, the beautiful world!” “Indeed!” said Mrs. Mar, beginning slowly to rock again, “and what’s he coming for _this_ time?” “Perhaps, as Hildegarde is fantastic enough to think, he may be coming to see me,” Mar answered. His wife’s laugh had a tang of shrewdness. “You’ll find he has business of some sort to attend to in California, if he _does_ come!” “Just now you were complaining that he didn’t attend to business anywhere.”