There’s two here now, besides Jim, and I expect they’ll bring a litter of kittens they have found somewhere in the woods. They have wonderful stomachs and are always wanting something to eat, and a pie is nothing to them. I make one every day,—sometimes two. Everybody likes Roger, and he seems to be more like a son than nephew, if he is cracked on ritualism, but I’ll never take in Clarice,—never!” When Elithe, who was in Rome, read this letter she cried out loud and Paul laughed louder than she cried. “Clarice, your stepmother! My stepmother-in-law! that would be rich,” he said. Then, when he saw how really distressed Elithe was, he tried to comfort her, but she would not be comforted. “Oh, Paul,” she sobbed, “we must go home and stop it!” “Stop what?” he asked. “The vested choir?” “No-o,” Elithe replied. “Do you want to blow out the candles?” “No. I don’t care if they have a hundred!” “Well, do you want to stop Rob from being an _aconite_?” “No-o. You know better. It’s,—oh, Paul! I don’t want father to marry Clarice! It would be so ridiculous!” “That’s it, is it?” Paul said, beginning to laugh again. “Don’t be alarmed,” he continued, “Clarice must amuse herself some way, and just now it suits her to help your father run the church. But she will never marry him. Don’t let that trouble you. We hav’n’t half done Europe yet. Next summer will be time enough to go home, and I doubt if we find Clarice there.” Paul was right in his conclusions. One winter, with nothing more exciting than helping run a church was enough for Clarice, and as early in the spring as they could get their house she and her mother returned to Washington and a more congenial atmosphere. When last heard from, a millionaire, old enough to be her father, was in constant attendance upon her, and rumor said, with more truth than it frequently does, that she was soon to be mistress of his handsome home on Massachusetts Avenue. For more than a year Paul and Elithe staid in Europe, accompanied by Tom, whose devotion to them knew no bounds. He did not, however, take kindly to foreign customs and foreign languages, and was glad when at last, on a bright day in July, the boat which had taken him from Oak City drew up to the wharf, where as great a crowd was assembled to meet the returning party as had been there when Paul came home with Clarice. Elithe was with him now, radiant with happiness, as she stepped ashore and was surrounded by her father and brothers and aunt and Mr. and Mrs. Ralston, all talking at once to her and then to Paul and then to Tom, who had never been so happy in his life. Max Allen was there, not in the capacity of constable. He had resigned that office, and during Tom’s absence had been Mr. Ralston’s coachman. “Hello, Tom,” he said, with a hearty hand grasp. “Here’s the hosses and the kerridge. I’ve been mighty proud to drive ’em, but I give ’em up to you, or would you rather walk this once?”