"Don't miss your party because of Ethan," added the old woman, more gently. "You have not understood. Your cousin has a great deal to occupy him in a world we do not belong to. It's of no use for us to disarrange our lives for a person who pays us a visit once in twenty years--here to-day, gone to-morrow." "Of course not," said Val. "There is one thing in particular that we must all be careful about." Mrs. Gano sank her voice, although the heavy parlor-door was shut. "Emmie has just told me that Ethan has some plan of giving you children a dog-cart. Now, I can't have that." "I thought you would object. I said so." "You were perfectly right. Of course Ethan doesn't realize; he offers these things out of sheer amiability and carelessness. It's a bagatelle to him. To us"--she laid her hand on Val's arm--"it is a question of the principle. We must guard against nothing so carefully as a habit of accepting things from a rich relation. It is a situation full of peril to personal dignity, to continuance of esteem." Thank Heaven, thought Val, that shameless letter asking for money had the sense to go and lose itself! What a disgrace to have brought upon her family! She felt a spasm of nervous relief go down her spine at the thought of that guilty secret having escaped detection. Mrs. Gano had gone and opened the front door. "Make haste, and you won't be so very late." Val went with lagging steps to the parlor, and came hurrying out with her things. Ethan had not even looked round. He was laughing at something Emmie was saying. "We haven't seen Harry Wilbur lately; ask him if he can't come in to-night," said Mrs. Gano, as she saw Val off. Oh yes, a great deal of water had flowed under the bridge since her own daughter was young. It was plain that Ethan was a great success in New Plymouth. Not that any of the neighbors knew him as yet, not that he had gone anywhere except to St. Thomas's that first Sunday; but such glimpses as the inhabitants had of him, whether at his rather absent-minded devotions or driving about with Mrs. Gano, had roused a fever of interest. The fact of his great wealth, combined with his somewhat glowering good looks, his slow transforming smile, ran away with hearts by the score, and made the tumble-down Fort a centre of seething gossip and excitement. Harry Wilbur was known to look upon the new-comer with open suspicion. "Can't say I've much use for an American who _isn't_ an American," said the florid Westerner to Julia Otway at the Hornsey "tea-fight." "What do you mean?" "Well, look at him." "Where--where?" Her unblushing excitement seemed further to annoy the usually equable Wilbur. "I don't mean he's here. But you've seen him, haven't you?" "Oh yes, but only at a distance. Have you?" "Quite near enough. He's like a Spaniard, or some kind of foreigner, and goes about looking as if he owned the earth."