“Well, my boy, have you been and done it? and was she favorable? You look rather happy,” Colin said to Rex as he came upon the piazza where the old man was sitting. “No, I haven’t,” Rex answered, adding that Irene had been summoned to New York to her brother, who was dying, and he had just time to say good-by. “Her brother!” Colin repeated. “I didn’t know she had one, and I don’t believe Sandy did. She never mentioned him, did she? Who is he?” “Her brother—that’s all I know,” Rex said, adding that he had never inquired about her family relations and she might have more than one brother for aught he knew. “Quite right,” Colin responded. “There’s nothing to hinder her having a dozen if she likes. Queer, though, we never heard Tom speak of him. I’m sorry you didn’t have a chance to square up to her before she went. Here you’ve let the time run to waste and now she’s gone, and that brother may die and she go into black, and the very old Harry be to pay before you see her again. Rex, my boy, you haven’t used her fair.” Some such thought was in Rex’s mind, and he said, rather humbly, “I’m afraid I have been rather slow and half-hearted; but what can I do now?” “I’m sure I don’t know, unless you write her a letter. George of Uxbridge! That’s just the checker!” Colin exclaimed, delighted with his bright idea. “Write and tell her what a laggard you have been. That will chirp her up a bit with her sick brother. Don’t put it off, but begin at once after lunch, which I think is ready now.” Rex had not much appetite for lunch. The reprieve, which had been so welcome, bade fair not to last long. And then he didn’t know what to say. He had never written to a woman in his life except once to his laundress asking where a part of his washing had gone to and why she tore his shirts so badly. That had been easy to do, because he was indignant that his shirts were torn, and out of five pairs of socks, only one pair had been returned, and that was not his, or mated either. He could write to Bridget O’Hara about his socks and shirts, but writing to Irene was a different matter. Hers must be a love-letter, or the semblance of one, and he felt himself wholly inadequate to the task. Once he thought to consult Colin, but remembering the old man’s advice with regard to his lovemaking, he changed his mind and decided to try and see what he could do alone.