"He knows how to give himself airs, too," Mr. Garratt said to himself, looking after him. "I'm rather surprised he didn't offer me a tip while he was about it. I'd like to take down all these chaps and show 'em the way they should go; but we are doing it," he added, thinking not of himself but of his class--"and once we've got the upper hand we'll keep it, and let 'em see that we can be swells as well as any one else." He walked slowly back to the house, thinking of Margaret. He was getting up to her ways, and he knew how to keep his temper--and the man who waited won. He liked her, but his feeling was pique, rather than passion, and he felt that to subdue her would be a gratification to his vanity greater than any other he could imagine. "And she's such a beauty!"--he always came back to that. "While there's a chance of her, I'd rather be shot than kiss that sour old hen, Hannah. I'll have Margaret if I die for it. I wish I'd thought of it and tried to find out if that chap knew anything about Vincent's relations. I expect he's been up to something, but I don't care--the girl isn't any the worse for it." During his absence the storm had burst in the living-room, but luckily circumstances obliged it to be brief. "I should like to know what you think of yourself now with your slyness and deceit?" Hannah had asked Margaret. "I'll not have you speak to your sister in this way," Mrs. Vincent began; but her remonstrances had grown ineffectual lately. "Mr. Garratt told you he was coming, did he, though nobody else in the house knew it?" Hannah went on. "You took good care that they shouldn't." "If he did tell me I had forgotten it," Margaret answered, scornfully. "You can be trusted to forget anything--if it's convenient. What's this poetry he's brought you, I should like to know?" "I didn't know he meant to bring it. He said something about Eugene Field's poems the other day, and that he had recited one at a chapel festival." The mention of the chapel somewhat mollified Hannah without subduing her jealousy. "Well, something will have to be done," she said. "I'm not going to put up with your conduct, and that you shall find out." At which point Mr. Garratt entered a little uneasily, as if conscious that things were not going smoothly. Margaret looked up and spoke to him quickly. "Mr. Garratt, I want to tell you that if you've brought me a book of poems I would rather not have it." "Why, what's up now?" "Nothing is up," she said, with what Mr. Garratt called her high and mighty air. "Well, look here--" but she had turned away. "Mother, shall we go into the garden?" she asked. "It's a little chilly this evening," Mrs. Vincent answered. "You've taken to feel the cold lately," Hannah said, uneasily. To her credit be it said that she was always careful of her mother's health. "I've taken to feel my years."