"You mean the Haskins?" spoke up Miss Denton. "Yes, it is very handsome, no doubt, but too ornate and pie-crusty for my--taste." Then a discussion ensued concerning architecture, old and new. "I mean the house going East from this place," put in Josie, not at all interested in the Haskins house. "The old home with the ivy and the box-bushes in the yard." "Oh, the Waller house!" said Major Denton. "That is perhaps the finest specimen of the old South left in the city. It was saved from the Yankee invasion by a piece of luck." He then plunged into war reminiscences that lasted through three courses, his table companions listening with bored politeness. "Do the same people still live there?" asked Josie, after Major Denton had fired the last shot for states' rights. "Well, they do and they don't," began the Major. "I can't see why you say they do," broke in Judge Tuttle. "Chester Hunt hasn't an ounce of Waller blood in his veins." "Indeed he has," declared Mrs. Claiborne. "Chester Hunt's mother's great-grandmother was a niece of old Edmund Waller's, the English founder of the Waller family. That is a well-known fact." "Ah, yes, a niece but--ah, well--the presence of ladies would deter my pressing my point," said Judge Tuttle, who then whispered sibilantly to a pink-cheeked old man across the table. "As I was saying," continued Major Denton, "they do and they don't. The present occupant of the Waller mansion is a stepbrother of Stephen Waller's. He, poor fellow, was killed during the war, the world war, I mean, not the war between the states." "Yes," breathed Josie, "and the stepbrother inherited his property?" "Oh, no, there is a widow and two children. A very sad story, very sad! The widow has been crazed by grief and I hear is hopelessly insane. The two children have been placed in care of an excellent woman and are now living near their mother, so if she should ever ask for them they can be reached quickly. She has shown no sign as yet of wanting to see them. A sad case!" "Yes, and I wouldn't trust those sanitariums," spoke Miss Oleander. "They are often very tricky." "Neither would I," said a young woman across the table from Josie. Her name was Miss Chisholm and she had the distinction of being in business. The ladies at Miss Denton's were not the type to be in business. "But Chester Hunt has been to the place again and again and says his step-sister-in-law is receiving every attention and is being watched with the greatest care. She is raving, so he says, and he is very sad over it. Chester Hunt is a fine young fellow in spite of the unkind things some persons say about his great-great-grandmother," declared Mrs. Claiborne, vindictively. "I don't like him," asserted Miss Chisholm. "Indeed!" and Mrs. Claiborne eyed Miss Chisholm through her lorgnette. "He is very popular with young ladies." There was a slight accent on the ladies.