"We had had two inches at this time last year," said old Colonel Fox. Martie knew that this unpromising avenue would lead him immediately to Chickamauga; she slipped into the dining room and began to carve. Aurora was rushing about with butter-plates, her cousin Lyola, engaged merely for the dinner-hour, was filling glasses. A moment later the entire household assembled for the meal. Mrs. Fox, a gentle, bony old lady, with clean, cool hands, and with a dowdy little yoke of good lace in the neck of her old silk, smiled about her sadly. Mrs. Winchell was a plump little woman who always burst out laughing as a preliminary to speech. Her daughter was eye-glassed, pretty, capable, a woman who realized perfectly, at twenty-six, that she had no charm whatever for men. She realized, too, that Mrs. Bannister, with her bronze hair and quick speech, was full of it, and envied the younger woman in a bloodless sort of way. Her brother, known as "Win," had already had a definite repulse from Mrs. Bannister, and nothing was too bad for the snubbed suitor to intimate about her in consequence. Win had never seen "this husband of hers"; Win thought she looked "a little gay, all right." He had a much more successful friendship with Adele, who slapped his hand and told him he was the "limit." To-night one of the clerks from the top floor, shaking out his napkin, called gaily to Mrs. Bannister that this was his birthday. It was characteristic of her kindly relationship that she came immediately to his table. Now why hadn't he told her yesterday? He should have had a cake, and chicken-pie, because he had once said chicken was his favourite "insect." He was twenty-eight? He seemed such a boy! She went back to her place, determining that she would set out a little supper of cake and crackers and cheese for him to find when his room-mate and he came in tired and wet from their theatre that night. She looked at Teddy; would he keep a birthday in a boarding-house some day with only the housekeeper to mother him? "We're betting that you're younger than I am, Mrs. Bannister!" "You win." She smiled at him frankly. "I'm not yet twenty-four!" Martie was conscious of a little pang as she met his surprised almost pitying look. "I think that talk about ages was just a little undignified," said Edna Winchell later that night. "Yes, I do, too!" her mother answered quickly. "There's something about that girl we don't understand, you bet," contributed the son. "When I went down for a match she was just getting a special delivery letter, and she looked as if she was going to drop. You mark my words--it had something to do with that mysterious husband of hers!"