Hedrick exploded. "`_Bel air_'!" he screamed, and began to jump up and down, tossing his arms frantically, and gasping with emotion. "Oh, bel air! Oh, blah! `Henry Esmond!' Been readin' `Henry Esmond!' Oh, you be-yoo-tiful Cora-Beatrix-a-_lee_! Magganifisent torso! Gull_o_-rious figgi-your! Bel air! Oh, slush! Oh, luv-a-ly slush!" He cast himself convulsively upon the floor, full length. "Luv-a-ly, _luv_-a-ly slush!" "He is thirty, I should say," continued Cora, thoughtfully. "Yes--about thirty. A strong, keen face, rather tanned. He's between fair and dark----" Hedrick raised himself to the attitude of the "Dying Gaul." "And with `hair slightly silvered at the temples!' _Ain_'t his hair slightly silvered at the temples?" he cried imploringly. "Oh, sister, in pity's name let his hair be slightly silvered at the temples? Only three grains of corn, your Grace; my children are starving!" He collapsed again, laid his face upon his extended arms, and writhed. "He has rather wonderful eyes," said Cora. "They seem to look right through you." "Slush, slush, luv-a-ly slush," came in muffled tones from the floor. "And he wears his clothes so well--so differently! You feel at once that he's not a person, but a personage." Hedrick sat up, his eyes closed, his features contorted as with agony, and chanted, impromptu: "Slush, slush, luv-a-ly, slush! Le'ss all go a-swimmin' in a dollar's worth o' mush. Slush in the morning, slush at night, If I don't get my slush I'm bound to get tight!" "Hedrick!" said his mother. "Altogether I should say that Mr. Valentine Corliss looks as if he lived up to his name," Cora went on tranquilly. "Valentine Corliss of Corliss Street--I think I rather like the sound of that name." She let her beautiful voice linger upon it, caressingly. "Valentine Corliss." Hedrick opened his eyes, allowed his countenance to resume its ordinary proportions, and spoke another name slowly and with honeyed thoughtfulness: "Ray Vilas." This was the shot that told. Cora sprang down from the table with an exclamation. Hedrick, subduing elation, added gently, in a mournful whisper: "_Poor_ old Dick Lindley!" His efforts to sting his sister were completely successful at last: Cora was visibly agitated, and appealed hotly to her mother. "Am I to bear this kind of thing all my life? Aren't you _ever_ going to punish his insolence?" "Hedrick, Hedrick!" said Mrs. Madison sadly. Cora turned to the girl by the window with a pathetic gesture. "Laura----" she said, and hesitated. Laura Madison looked up into her sister's troubled eyes. "I feel so morbid," said Cora, flushing a little and glancing away. "I wish----" She stopped.