"It is, after you get there," said Mrs. Cristie, "and the situation and the surroundings are beautiful, and the air is very healthful. My husband was Captain Cristie of the navy. He was in bad health when he went to the Squirrel Inn, but the air did him good, and if we had staid all winter, as Stephen Petter wanted us to, it would have been a great advantage to him. But when the weather grew cool we went to New York, where my husband died early in the following December." "I will take my chances with Stephen Petter," said Lodloe, after a suitable pause. "I am going to the Squirrel Inn, and I am bound to stay there. There must be some road not through Germantown by which a fellow can get into the favor of Mr. Petter. Perhaps you will say a good word for me, madam?" "I don't know any good word to say," she answered, "except that you take excellent care of babies, and I am not at all sure that that would have any weight with Stephen Petter. Since you are going to the inn, and since we have already talked together so much, I wish I did properly know you. Did you ever have a sister at Vassar?" "I am sorry to say," said Lodloe, "that I never had a sister at that college, though I have one who wanted very much to go there; but instead of that she went with an aunt to Europe, where she married." "An American?" asked Mrs. Cristie. "Yes," said Lodloe. "What was his name?" "Tredwell." "I never heard of him," said the lady. "There don't seem to be any threads to take hold of." "Perhaps you had a brother at Princeton," remarked Lodloe. "I have no brother," said she. There was now a pause in the dialogue. The young man was well pleased that this very interesting young woman wished to know him properly, as she put it, and if there could be found the least bit of foundation on which might be built a conventional acquaintance he was determined to find it. "Were you a Vassar girl?" he asked. "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Cristie; "I was there four years." "Perhaps you know something of old Matthew Vassar, the founder?" Mrs. Cristie laughed. "I've heard enough about him, you may be sure; but what has he to do with anything?" "I once slept in his room," said Lodloe; "in the Founder's Room, with all his stiff old furniture, and his books, and his portrait." "You!" cried Mrs. Cristie. "When did you do that?" "It was two years ago this spring," said Lodloe. "I was up there getting material for an article on the college which I wrote for the 'Bayside Magazine.'" "Did you write that?" said Mrs. Cristie. "I read it, and it was just as full of mistakes as it could be."