“Thank you, my dear,” he said. “Very charming. Thank you, my dear.” Then came Aunt Aggie, her eyes nervous and a little resentful as though she had been treated rather hardly but was making the best of difficult circumstances. “I’m afraid you won’t like this, Father,” she said. “I felt that you wouldn’t when I got it. But I did my best. It’s a silly thing to give you, I’m afraid.” She watched as the old man, very slowly, undid the parcel. She had given him a china ink-stand. It had been as though she had said: “Anything more foolish than to give an old man who ought to be thinking about the grave a china ink-stand I can’t imagine.” Perhaps her father had felt something of this in her voice—he answered her a little sharply—— “Thank ’ye—my dear Aggie—Thank ’ye.” Very different Aunt Betty. She came forward like a cheerful and happy sparrow, her head just on one side as though she wished to perceive the complete effect of everything that was going on. “My present is handkerchiefs, Father. I worked the initials myself. I hope you will like them,” and then she bent forward and took his hand in hers and held it for a moment. As he looked across at her, a little wave of colour crept up behind the white mask of his cheek. “Dear Betty—my dear. Thank ’ye—Thank ’ye.” Then followed Mrs. Trenchard, moving like some fragment of the old house that contained her, a fragment anxious to testify its allegiance to the head of the family—but anxious—as one must always remember with Mrs. Trenchard—with no very agitated anxiety. Her slow smile, her solid square figure that should have been fat but was only broad, her calm soft eyes—cow’s eyes—from these characteristics many years of child-bearing and the company of a dreamy husband had not torn her. Would something ever tear her?... Yes, there was something. In her slow soft voice she said: “Father dear, many happy returns of the day—_many_ happy returns. This is a silk muffler. I hope you’ll like it, Father dear. It’s a muffler.” They surveyed one another calmly across the shining table. Mrs. Trenchard was a Faunder, but the Faunders were kin by breeding and tradition to the Trenchards—the same green pastures, the same rich, packed counties, the same mild skies and flowering Springs had seen the development of their convictions about the world and their place in it. The Faunders.... The Trenchards ... it is as though you said Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Mrs. Trenchard looked at her father-in-law and smiled, then moved away.