We heard the tramp of the other three, and I would have run down on account of the stranger within my gates, but Ellery asked me to tie his cravat, and I made a botchy tie of it, and finally Ethel called up from the dining room. “We’re all waiting, dear.” Then we both went down in our evening clothes, and entered the dining room. Around it stood the ladies and the three men, and when we saw them and they saw us a happy shout arose. The men were not in evening dress. They _had_ seen me when they first came down, and, as Tom explained afterward, Hepburn, seeing that I was not in evening clothes, had suggested that they all change back, which Tom was very glad to do, “as he hated the durned things.” So there they stood in sacks and cutaway and we were the only ones in evening dress. “Well, I won’t change back again,” said I, “but after this let’s give our city clothes a rest and just be comfortable.” “But I contend,” said Benedict, “that evening clothes _are_ just as comfortable.” “Yes,” said Tom, “but it’s harder to get into ’em, and if we go out walking after dinner it’s ridiculous to be dressed so stiffly in a wild flower country.” It was a jolly dinner and no one did more to make it jolly than Tom. His humour is elemental, but it is genuine, and his appreciation of it is also genuine and his tremendous reverberating laugh is infectious. Many times during the progress of the meal I found Hepburn’s placid eyes resting on Cherry. “Two of them,” thought I, and after dinner Ethel and I compared notes and we agreed that Cherry could have her choice. Perhaps we jumped to conclusions, but to see Cherry was to love her, and Ethel told me that she was glad that Cherry was only a little girl when I first met her or “you might have been Mr. Paxton.” “Phil, do you know who it would do good to have up here?” said Tom, after a burst of enthusiasm concerning the country. “Jack Manton. Jack Manton and Billy Edson. They’re both stone broke and they’re getting their country by taking walks out of New York, and this scenery would just about kill ’em both dead. Why don’t you ask ’em up?” A roar followed this question. “Let ’em sleep in the chimney,” I suggested, at which innocent remark Minerva, who was waiting on table, gave a suppressed giggle that set Cherry off and she was followed first by Ellery and then—of all the people in the world, by Mr. Hepburn. Probably Minerva’s act itself was so unheard of that it struck him as being humourous. A maid laughing at table. But it was a lucky thing that Minerva was in the room. That is lucky for Jack and Billy.