Lydia stopped in the doorway, with a look of apology for her lack of interest in their talk. "I thought I'd just slip into the hall and see if there's anything new there. There's so much I want to see--all at once." Her fond impatience brought her parents forward with a start of pleasure, and the tour of inspection began. She led them from one room to another, swooping with swallow-like motions upon them for sudden caresses, dazzling them with her changing grace. She liked it all--all--she told them, a thousand times better than she remembered. She liked the new arrangement of the butler's pantry; she loved the library for being all done over new; she adored the hall for being left exactly the way it was. The dining-room was the best of all, she declared, with so much that was familiar and so much that was new. "Only no sideboard," she commented. "Have they gone out of fashion while I was away?" Mrs. Emery, whose delight at Lydia's approval had been mounting with every breath, looked vexed. "I knew you'd notice that!" she said. "We tried so hard to get the new one put in before you got back, but Mr. Rankin won't deliver a thing till it's just so!" "Rankin!" cried Lydia, stopping so short in one of her headlong rushes across the room that she gave the impression of having encountered an invisible obstacle, "Who's that?" "Oh, that's the crazy cabinet-maker we were talking about. The one who--" "Why, I've met a Mr. Rankin," said Lydia, with more emphasis than the statement seemed to warrant. "It's a common enough name," said her mother, struck oddly by her accent. "But here, in Endbury. Only it can't be the same person. He wasn't queer; he was awfully nice. I met him once when a crowd of us were out skating that last Christmas I was home from school; the time when you and Father were in Washington and left me at Dr. Melton's with Aunt Julia. I used to see him there a lot. He used to talk to the doctor by the hour, and Aunt Julia and I were doing that set of doilies in Hardanger work and we used to sit and sew and count threads and listen." "That's the one," said her father. "Melton has one of his flighty notions that the man is something wonderful." "But he wasn't queer or anything then!" protested Lydia. "He never talked to me any, of course, I was such a kid, but it was awfully interesting to hear him and Godfather go on about morals, and the universe, and the future of man, and such--I never heard such talk before or after--but it can't be that one!" Lydia broke off to marvel incredulously at the possibility. "He was--why, he was awfully nice!" she fell back on reiteration to help out her affirmation.