One peculiarity of life at the Fort was that although visitors in general were in high disfavor, everybody, from Mrs. Gano down to Jerusha--especially Jerusha--was always hoping for a visit from cousin Ethan. And he never came. The last vacation before Val's arrival Emmie said he had had to go with the Tallmadges to Bar Harbor. This June he couldn't come, because his aunt Hannah had died, and his grandfather was alone; but he thought he might come "later on." Now that the maples were scarlet and gold, he wrote regretfully, saying that, after all, he had to go back to Harvard without any holiday. He sent his love to his cousins, and the annual photograph--which she had commanded to be taken each year--to his grandmother. She had a row of them on the mantel-piece in her room. When the new one came like a falling leaf each autumn, she spent anxious days deciding which of the old ones should go in a drawer to make room for the latest. There were three that never yielded to any new-comer, however beguiling. Ethan's cousins, it must be admitted, who were ardent admirers of the more recent pictures, thought little enough of Mrs. Gano's favorite three. The first was of a child about three years old in his night-gown--a dreamy little face framed in a halo of curling hair. Yes; it was more like an angel than a flesh-and-blood boy, but it was yellowed and faded, and not taken at an interesting age, so his two cousins thought. The next was a very solemn little chap with a tiny pail in his hand, dressed in a kilt, and wearing a wide white collar, seeming to labor hopelessly with a wooden spade in a world of unmitigated woe. The third had been taken in Paris with his school friend Henri de Poincy, and he had on "funny French clothes," but he held his slender figure very easily erect, and without seeming to remember he was having his photograph taken. He had written from Neuilly to his grandmother: "I always think of my summer at the Fort when I go to have your picture done." If that were the case, this time the remembrance must have been a gracious one, for his dark little face was lit, expectant, beautiful. "Why did he go to France?" Val had asked. "Oh, some nonsense about accent, as if the only accent to be considered was the French." Mrs. Gano threw back her head. "And then a cousin of the Tallmadges married a Frenchman, a man called De Poincy. The mother died, and left a boy--" "That awful little ape in the pho-- I mean Henri?" "Yes; Henri, a _very_ nice boy." Mrs. Gano would not have prolonged the conversation, but Emmie said: "I'm sure he's nice. Cousin Ethan's letters always say beautiful things about Henri. _Do_ go on." "I've told you scores of times." As if that were not the flimsiest reason for not repeating a stock tale, half of whose charm is its familiarity. "Didn't cousin Ethan find Henri at the Tallmadges' when he got back?"