His glance was toward his wife, whom he adored openly, and toward whom he, at all times, showed the greatest consideration, but who, through some prescience, was fidgeting a little. "Madam," he began pompously, slapping his hand upon his chest, "the husband is the head of the family--he really isn't," he added in an audible aside, "but we'll assume it for the present. Madam, he is the head of the family and must be obeyed. I order, command and direct you to tell a story; if need be I will even abdicate for the moment and so far humiliate myself as to implore you to tell a story. Tell about that affair which took place at the Grand Cattaraugus, when we were stopping there last summer." The pleasant-faced lady appeared hesitant: "But it's almost a naughty story," she protested; "it's about a stocking, and, oh dear! there's something about a"--and she blushed prettily, as is always the case when a middle-aged woman thus demeans herself, "there's an ankle in it, too." "Nonsense," retorted the Colonel. "Do you mean in the story or in the stocking? In either case an ankle is all right. Go ahead, my dear." Mrs. Livingston yielded: "After all," she said, "it's not so very wicked and the story is chiefly about matching colors, which is a subject not unlikely to interest ladies. Anyhow, it interested me in this instance. I know all the shocking circumstances, and, since I've gone so far I may as well be reckless. I suppose the story might be called THE PURPLE STOCKING Maxwell, a gentleman stopping at the hotel, was bored. There existed no particular excuse for his frame of mind, but the fact remained. He had fairly earned a vacation, but when the time came for escape from the midsummer heat of his offices he had found himself with no well-defined idea of where his outing should be spent. Circumstances rendered it necessary that it should be a brief one this time, else he would have known what to do with himself, for the man knew the Rocky Mountains. As it was, he had but taken train for one of the nearby summer resorts, where the Grand Cattaraugus caravansary, consisting, as those places do, of an enormous piazza with a hotel attached to its rear, loomed up beside and overlooked the pretty hill-surrounded lake with its blue waters, narrow beach and many pleasure boats. It was not a bad place and Maxwell had decided that it would be endurable for a week or two, especially after the arrival of his friend, Jim Farrington, who had promised to follow and loaf genially with him.