“Rich!” he said. “I am beginning to enjoy myself immensely. Would she turn us out bag and baggage if she knew it was ‘Oh-be-joyful’?” “Not from my house,” Hal answered, with an air of proprietorship; “but she is a strict temperance woman, and we’d better not let her know, if we can help it.” Pondy, to whom the wine belonged, and who was the fastest of the set and the least of a gentleman, notwithstanding his wealth, looked askance. Dinner without wine would hardly be dinner, though he might perhaps get along with beer and visit the boxes afterward. “The old lady will let me have beer, won’t she?” he asked. “You mean my aunt, Mrs. Stannard?” Hal said, with a great deal of dignity, for the “old lady” offended him. Pondy saw it and hastened to say: “Certainly, I beg your pardon. I mean your aunt, of course. It was a slip of the tongue. If you think best we’ll put the boxes in the cellar, where we can take a private nip now and then, and on our last night have the bottles up with a regular blow out. What do you say, boys?” Instantly there went up a cheer for Little Pondy and the private nips. “Won’t be much left for a blow-out,” Tom said, “but I vote we put the stuff in the cellar.” It did not take long to carry the boxes there and unpack the bottles and uncork one of them for the little nips, which Pondy took on the spot, to sample it, he said. As they emerged from the cellar Kenneth came into the hall. He had been visiting some patients a few miles away and just returned. If the young men had been inclined to make fun of the “old coves,” they had no such idea with regard to the fine-looking man whom Hal introduced as “My cousin, Dr. Stannard.” They were expecting to see a common country doctor, and were not prepared for the ease and dignity with which Kenneth met them. He did not say he was glad to see them, but he was courteous and polite, and said he hoped they would enjoy themselves. “Thanks,” little Pondy replied. “We are going to enjoy ourselves immensely.”