"It cannot but be gratifying to me," Stanwood remarked, in the half-satirical tone he found easiest in conversation with this near relative; "in fact, I may say it _is_ gratifying to me, to find that the impression is mutually favorable. Halstead, the ruffianly looking sheep-raiser who called you 'Madam,' confided to me that you were the first woman he had ever met who knew the difference between a horse and a cow; and Simmons, the light-haired man who looks like a deacon, but who is probably the worst thief in four counties, told me I ought to be proud of 'that gal'!" "Oh, papa, what gorgeous compliments! Don't you want a swap?" "A what?" "A swap. That's what we call it when we pay back one compliment with another." He turned and looked at her with an amused approval which was almost paternal. "It is most refreshing," he said, "to have the vocabulary of the effete West enlivened with these breezy expressions from the growing East." "But, papa, you must really like slang, now really! Uncle Nicholas could never tolerate it." "There you strike a chord! I desire you to speak nothing but slang if Nick objects." Agreeable badinage had always been a favorite pastime with Jacob Stanwood. If Elizabeth had but guessed it, a taste of it was worth more to him than all the filial devotion she held in reserve. "And now for the swap," she said. "You are not modest, I hope?" "Heaven forbid!" "Well, then! Miss Hunniman--you remember Miss Hunniman? She used to make mama's dresses, and now she makes mine. She told me only a year ago that whenever she read about Sir Galahad or the Chevalier Bayard or Richard the Lion-hearted, she always thought of you; which was very inconvenient, because it made her mix them up, and she never could remember which of them went to the Crusades and which of them did not!" Anything in the nature of a reminiscence was sure to jar upon Stanwood. He preferred to consider the charming young person beside him as an agreeable episode; he half resented any reminder of the permanence of their relation. Therefore, in response to this little confidence, which caused the quaint figure of Miss Hunniman to present itself with a hundred small, thronging associations of the past, he only remarked drily: "I suppose you know that if you stay out here any length of time you will spoil your complexion."