"Why, Pet----" Miss Ethel caught herself, and summoning a cordial tone added quickly: "Lord Kiscadden! A telegram came a long time ago--I thought you had received it? I'm afraid they stopped the boy in the kitchen." "Oh, I say, by Jove! Fancy now!" George Washington jumped hastily to his feet. "Pleased to know ye, ma'am," he added with a farewell duck of his head; and without waiting for further words, he vaulted the veranda railing and disappeared around the corner of the house. He lingered a moment in the shrubbery to hear her say: "Lord Kiscadden and I have been having such an interesting evening! What a delicious accent he has! You must bring him to Red Towers, Mr. Jasper. I feel that he really belongs to me more than to you; we have discovered that we are distant connections. It seems that his grandmother, the third Lady Kiscadden, was a McGarrah before she married. My own family name was McGarrah, and----" Peter put his hand over his mouth to stifle his feelings, and reeled toward the kitchen porch. An hour later, when supper was finished, Miss Ethel and Mr. Harry Jasper slipped away from the guests and turned toward the kitchen. They paused for a moment in the butler's pantry, arrested by the sound of Peter's voice as he discoursed in his richest brogue to an appreciative group of maids. His theme was the Daughters of the Revolution--he had evidently kept his ears open during his brief introduction to society. "Me father was a Malone, an' me mother was a Haggerty. The family settled in America in 1620 B. C., all me ancistors on both sides bein' first-cabin passengers on the _Mayflower_. We're straight discinded from Gov'nor Bradford, an' me fifth great-grandfather was the first man hung in the United States. Malone's a Scotch name--it used to be Douglas, but it got changed in the pronouncin'--an' Haggerty is Frinch. I'm eligible on both sides, an' me mother was a charter member. Yes, 'tis a great society; the object of it is to keep the country dimocratic." They pushed open the door and entered. Peter, restored to his own clothes, was seated before the kitchen table engaged, between sentences, with a soup plate full of ice-cream. He shuffled hastily to his feet as the two appeared, and with a somewhat guilty air studied their faces. He was trying to remember what he had said last. "Peter," Miss Ethel's voice was meant to be severe, "what have you been telling Mrs. Booth-Higby?" Peter shifted his weight anxiously from one foot to the other. "Nothin', ma'am." "Nothing--nonsense! She is going about telling everybody that she is Lord Kiscadden's cousin. She never made up any such impossible story as that without help." Miss Ethel's manner was sternly reproving, but Peter caught a gleam of malicious amusement in her eye. It occurred to him that she was not averse to an exhibition of Mrs. Booth-Higby's folly before Mr. Harry Jasper.