“I do, perfectly; rather chubby, with blue eyes, curly hair, fair skin, and blushes when you speak to him.” “Papa!” “Eh?--Oh, well, he USED to. You see that was twenty-five years ago, when he left here for boarding-school. He ran away from there, as I told you; went to sea, and finally brought up at San Francisco.” “And you haven't had any picture, or photograph of him, since?” “No--that is--I say!--you haven't, any of you, got a picture of Sylvester, have you?” he turned in a vague parenthetical appeal to the company of relatives and friends collected in the drawing-room after dinner. “Cousin Jane has; she knows all about him!” But it appeared that Cousin Jane had only heard Susan Marckland say that Edward Bingham had told her that he was in California when “Uncle Sylvester” had been nearly hanged by a Vigilance Committee for protecting a horse thief or a gambler, or some such person. This was felt to be ineffective as a personal description. “He's sure to wear a big beard; they all do when they first come back,” said Amos Gunn, with metropolitan oraculousness. “He has a big curling mustache, long silken hair, and broad shoulders,” said Marie du Page. There was such piquant conviction in the manner of the speaker, who was also a very pretty girl, that they all turned towards her, and Kitty quickly said,-- “But YOU'VE never seen him?” “No--but--” She stopped, and, lifting one shoulder, threw her spirited head sideways, in a pretty deprecatory way, with elevated eyebrows and an expression intended to show the otherwise untranslatable character of her impression. But it showed quite as pleasantly the other fact, that she was the daughter of a foreigner, an old French military explorer, and that she had retained even in Anglo-Saxon Lakeville some of the Gallic animation. “Well, how many of you girls are going with me to meet him at the station?” said Gabriel, dismissing with masculine promptness the lesser question. “It's time to be off.” “I'd like to go,” said Kitty, “and so would Cousin Jane; but really, papa, you see if YOU don't know him, and WE don't either, and you've got to satisfy yourself that it's the right man, and then introduce YOURSELF and then us--and all this on the platform before everybody--it makes it rather embarrassing for us. And then, as he's your younger brother and we're supposed to be his affectionate nieces, you know, it would make HIM feel SO ridiculous!” “And if he were to KISS you,” said Marie tragically, “and then turn out not to be him!” “So,” continued Kitty, “you'd better take Cousin John, who was more in Uncle Sylvester's time, to represent the Past of the family, and perhaps Mr. Gunn”-- “To represent the future, I suppose?” interrupted Gabriel in a wicked whisper.