The stout, excitable little man displayed more penetration than one would have supposed he possessed. Gwynne did make them stand 'round. When he came home on his vacations, you might see him prowling about the place with a delegation of unwilling relatives, arguing, explaining, persuading. Being a Gwynne himself, the boy knew how to get at his kin, upon what side to take them without offence. There was very little boyishness about his weary, anxious, gently humorous face, and the family all knew, that, young as he was, he already had one grave and bitter care. Perhaps that made them respect him; there are some people that never grow up, and, conversely, there are some who never seem to have any youth. When Gwynne came home, the estate's property all at once took on a smiling look of change. Sidewalks were mended and shutters painted; the grass was cut in the park and the rubbish cleared away; he even got them to consent to putting a furnace in the house! Templeton went about in jubilant relief at having someone to share his responsibilities. "Told you so! That boy has a _head_! All Peters and mighty little Gwynne, that's what _he_ is!" In spite of their efforts, however, the house, as Templeton pointed out with a solemn wagging of the head, "was not a paying proposition." Going away to boarding-school at this time with Kitty Oldham and others of about our age, we heard and saw less and less of it. Nobody of our acquaintance would risk the experiment of living in it; it was only strangers who fitfully came and went as tenants of the old Gwynne house. Sometimes there would be curtains at the windows, and smoke hanging from the chimneys; on our next return it would be again shut and deserted. Those people? Oh, yes, they were in some railroad position, and they've been moved to Indianapolis. No, no one called on them, it's so hard to get out there, you know, and they were only here a few months. Once the tenants scuttled out in a dreadful state of scare, declaring that Arthur Gwynne's ghost came down and paraded the ballroom o' nights, with his head on one side, and the rag of sheet dangling from his twisted neck! "I do hope poor Cousin Eleanor and Cousin Mollie won't hear that story," said Gwynne, in concern, and painstakingly invented and retailed to them another excuse for the sudden cessation of rent. Once, in the summer vacation, the Board of Lady Managers of the Home for Incurables gave a lawn-party on the grounds for the benefit of their charity. There were booths set up and Japanese lanterns swinging under the beeches, and a deal of noise beneath Caroline Gwynne's windows where we children had been obliged to go so sedately in the old days. People who had no carriages came in long weary procession from the Lexington and Amherst Street cars--within easy walking-distance--bearing their contributions of bowls of salad and chocolate-cakes shrouded in their oldest napkins. The house was opened, and the ladies of the committee heated coffee on