The farmer showed him to the spare-room, in which he found his belongings. Left to make his toilet, he muttered, "Ah, better and better! This is not the regulation refrigerator into which guests are put at farmhouses. All needed for solid comfort is here, even to a slight fire in the air-tight. Now, isn't that rosy old lady a jewel of a mother-in-law? She knows that a warm man shouldn't get chilled just as well as if she had studied athletics. Miss Sue, however, is a little chilly. She's on the fence yet. Jupiter! I AM tired. Oh, well, I don't believe I'll have seven years of this kind of thing. You were right, though, old man, if your Rachel was like mine. What's that rustle in the other room? She's dressing for dinner. So must I; and I'm ready for it. If she has romantic ideas about love and lost appetites, I'm a goner." When he descended to the parlor, his old stylish self again, Sue was there, robed in a gown which he had admired before, revealing the fact to her by approving glances. But now he said, "You don't look half so well as you did before." "I can't say that of you," she replied. "A man's looks are of no consequence." "Few men think so." "Oh, they try to please such critical eyes as I now am meeting." "And throw dust in them too sometimes." "Yes; gold dust, often. I haven't much of that." "It would be a pity to throw it away if you had." "No matter how much was thrown, I don't think it would blind you, Miss Banning." The dining-room door across the hall opened, and the host and hostess appeared. "Why, father and mother, how fine you look!" "It would be strange indeed if we did not honor this day," said Mrs. Banning. "I hope you have not so tired yourself, sir, that you cannot enjoy your dinner. I could scarcely believe my eyes as I watched you from the window." "I am afraid I shall astonish you still more at the table. I am simply ravenous." "This is your chance," cried Sue. "You are now to be paid in the coin you asked for." Sue did remark to herself by the time they reached dessert and coffee, "I need have no scruples in refusing a man with such an appetite; he won't pine. He is a lawyer, sure enough. He is just winning father and mother hand over hand." Indeed, the bosom of good Mrs. Banning must have been environed with steel not to have had throbs of goodwill toward one who showed such hearty appreciation of her capital dinner. But Sue became only the more resolved that she was not going to yield so readily to this muscular suitor who was digging and eating his way straight into the hearts of her ancestors, and she proposed to be unusually elusive and alert during the afternoon. She was a little surprised when he resumed his old tactics. After drinking a second cup of coffee, he rose, and said, "As an honest man, I have still a great deal to do after such a dinner."