I’d like to see you all, of course, but you will keep, and the invitation to Cedar Bank won’t. Give my love to Aunt Mary and kiss her for me, and Uncle Ephraim, too, if he will let you. Give old Chance a pat on the head. I think a good deal of him as a dog. Tom knows about him and the dozen cats,—I think I said two dozens,—who eat out of the trough. He wants to see them awfully. He is nearly as great on cats as you are. “Very lovingly, your cousin, “HAL.” Kenneth read this letter twice, with a swelling in his heart as if it would burst. For himself he did not care, but he did not like to have his father and mother mistaken for darkies. It was humiliating, and it hurt him. He didn’t like the way Harry spoke of the house, as if he were ashamed of it, but more than all he was disappointed. He had anticipated Harry’s coming home, and wanted to show him his standing in the Millville Academy, and to compare notes as to which knew the most of Latin, and to show off his dancing steps and bows, and possibly get Hal to coach him a little, he was so well posted on such matters. Then there were so many things to make Harry’s home coming pleasant. Quantities of walnuts and butternuts and chestnuts, which he had gathered during the autumn, when he had a leisure hour, were ranged in rows on the ball-room floor. The finest clusters of grapes had been wrapped in paper bags, and put away where they would not freeze, for Harry was fond of grapes, and apples, too, and the largest and best of Baldwins and Kings were on the top of the barrels in the cellar ready for him, while over and above all was the present Kenneth had bought for him with money saved from his own rather scanty allowance, a pearl-handled pocket knife with three blades, for which he had given a dollar. There were the soft wool mittens his mother had knit and the skates his father had bought, all waiting for Hal, who was not coming to claim them, and whose friend, Tom Haynes, thought them all negroes and the Morris Place a palace! It was hard, and Kenneth swallowed and winked a good many times before he could force back the tears from his eyes and the lump from his throat.