"Are we to have a whole house to ourselves?" asked Colonel Meredith. He had not yet taken his eyes from Maud Darling's face. "It's only two rooms: bath, parlor, and piazza," she explained. "That last?" asked Mr. Jonstone. "It's the same thing as a 'poach,'" explained Mr. Langham with a sly twinkle in his eyes. "It's to sit on and enjoy the view from," added Maud. "But I don't want to admire the view," complained Colonel Meredith. "I want to lounge about the office. It's the prerogative of every American citizen to lounge about the office of his hotel." Colonel Meredith had yet to take his eyes from Maud Darling's face. And it was with protest written all over it that he at length followed his cousin and Mr. Langham into the open air. The three were presently sampling a cocktail of the latter's shaking in the latter's snug little house, and speech was loosened in their mouths. "Darling, _père_," explained Sam Langham, "went broke. He used to run this place as it is run now, with this difference: that in the old days he put up the money, while now it is the guests who pay. Two years ago the Miss Darling you just met was one of the greatest heiresses in America; now she keeps books and makes out bills." "And are there truly five others equally lovely?" asked Colonel Meredith. "Some people think that the oldest of the six is also the loveliest," said Sam Langham, loyal to the choice of his own heart. "But they are all very lovely." To the Carolinians, warmed by Langham's cocktail, it seemed pitiful that six beautiful girls who had had so much should now have so little. And with a little encouragement they would have been moved to the expression of exaggerated sentiments. It was Maud, however, and not the others, who had aroused these feelings in their breasts. The desire to benefit her by some secret action--and then to be found out--was very strong in them both. Langham left them after a time and they began to dress for dinner. Usually they had a great deal to say to each other; often they disputed and were gorgeously insolent to each other about the most trifling things, but on the present occasion their one desire was to dress as rapidly as possible and to visit the office upon some pretext or other. When Colonel Meredith from the engulfment of a starched shirt announced that he had several letters to write and wondered where one could buy postage-stamps, it afforded Bob Jonstone malicious satisfaction to inform him that the "little drawer in their writing-table contained not only plenty of twos but fives and a strip of special deliveries." "All I have to think about," said he, "is my laundry. I suppose they can tell me at the office." "_They?_" exclaimed Colonel Meredith.