“So much depends upon where you spend your summers,” Felicia had once ingenuously remarked; and not without some anxiety, her parents had made a similar observation. However, it was with a certain feeling of relief that Felix and his wife had compared notes upon the subject of Jimmy Alexander. Weighed in the balance with every other collegian in Flickey’s career, the young man triumphed conspicuously. Incidentally, he had an interest in old silver, an interest which even the skeptical Felix believed was genuine. The fount and origin of that interest would have been clear to our cousin the collector could he have overheard Flickey and Jimmy in the arbor, after a game of tennis. “I’ll beat you to it,” Flickey was saying. “You find me that Lafayette bottom, and your fortune’s made, with father. He tells us now, after all these years, that he doesn’t believe there _is_ such a thing. But all the same there’s a look of holy faith shining behind those shell rims of his. Say, Jimmy, did you ever notice how blue father’s eyes are? They’re the eyes of a believer, every time!” Jimmy was too much engrossed with Felicia’s eyes to spare a thought for Felix’s. But the girl’s suggestion about the Lafayette bottom caught his fancy. An up-and-coming lawyer, such as he intended eventually to be, ought to be able to hunt down a silver bowl; or rather, what is more to the point with lawyers, to get some one else to do it. “My Aunt Amanda at Lost River,” he mused aloud, “has quite a little collection of such trifles, and I’m sure she’d be glad to advise—” “Your Aunt Amanda, at Lost River,” hooted Felicia, the morning-glory willingly assuming the rôle of owl. “Oh, Jimmy, you innocent, don’t you suppose father has been up hill and down dale, from Lost River to Newfoundland Bay, looking for that bowl? Don’t you know that half the dealers in New York are out with bloodhounds seeking stuff for father’s cabinets to devour? Your Aunt Amanda, indeed! And Lost River! Huh!” Jimmy was nettled, but not defeated. “All the same,” he retorted stubbornly, “my Aunt Amanda is just as good as anybody else’s, and in fact a lot better than most; and there’s as good fish in Lost River as you can buy in all New York. And furthermore, if you don’t mind my mentioning it, my Aunt Amanda is an authority on Early American silver. You probably are not aware of the fact that it was she who wrote the famous Blakeney monograph! Amanda Alexander Blakeney is her name.” Flickey was taken aback for a fraction of a second. “A. A. Blakeney? Why, we were brought up on her! I thought it was a him, I did, really! Dad swears by his Blakeney.” “Then why shouldn’t we Dodge up to Lost River,” urged Jimmy, appeased, “and see auntie about it?” Felicia’s eyes shone, but her words were circumspect. “Of course we could Dodge it in your car, or Ford it in mine; but hadn’t we better get father and mother to take us up in the family ark, with Priscilla and the children—?”