"No, no," protested Mrs. Gano. "This is new. It hasn't been up more than"--she reflected. "Nine years ago, this coming May," said John Gano. "Oh, really!" Ethan passed his slim, brown finger-tips lightly over the wall behind the sofa. "It's just as nice as the old kind was," he said, smiling; "it comes off on your fingers, shiny and metallic." "Yes," said Val; "just like the dust off a butterfly's wings." "So it is." He nodded across the room at her. "I remember what fun I used to think it to rub it off--just a little, grandmamma." "If you remember that," said Mrs. Gano, indulgently, "you remember I always reproved you for it." "No, no." He jumped up, and stood very tall and smiling in front of her, with his hands behind his back, like a guilty urchin. "You've forgotten. When you caught me with silvery fingers, I used to be awfully alarmed. I always tried to disarm you by saying 'I was _afraid_ you'd scold.' Then you would say, 'I never scold. I point out your defects--it's what I'm here for.'" They all laughed, the two girls with some misgiving. This repartee still did service on occasion. "Oh, but those were good times!" Yet even as he said the words the gay look faded out of his face. "It was a long while ago." "It's nineteen years," said John Gano, who was wrestling with a fit of coughing. These attacks were such a commonplace in the family life that the rest were aware of this one only when Ethan said: "What a frightful cough you've got, Uncle John." "No--nothing unusual. It begins like this when the cold weather comes on." "Oh, father, you don't call to-day cold!" said Emmie. "Your uncle is much better than he used to be," said Mrs. Gano, rising with her habitual every-day decision, and glancing at the clock. "You must be tired, Ethan?" "Do you think you're _too_ tired--" Val began, and hesitated, seized again with an unaccustomed shyness. "I'm as fresh as possible." He turned and looked inquiringly at her. "I was just thinking how excited An' Jerusha's been about your coming, and--" "Why, of course; I'll go out and see her a moment." "May I come, too?" asked Emmie. "Yes, do." He glanced towards Val, but she turned away an indifferent face. "Come." He went off with Emmie, leaving Val behind, consumed with longing to go, but feeling as if she were chained to her chair. "I don't like to see him looking delicate," said John Gano. "Delicate! What an idea!" remonstrated his mother. "He is young to have that slight inclination to stoop." "Mere habit. You see, he is so tall. A man of six feet can afford to stoop just a little. It's hardly perceptible." John Gano shook his head. "Thinner than he ought to be." "My patience, but you're hard to please! As if a fat man weren't an abhorrence." "I didn't say I wanted to see him porpoisical." "A man of Ethan's age ought not to have an ounce of superfluous flesh." "Well, I should say he hadn't." "All of us have invariably been thin."