It was fifteen minutes or more before he returned, and taking his seat, began: “Dot is so flurried and upset about them Tracys that she actually consulted me. You know they are comin’ to-night?” “Who is coming?” Craig asked, rather relieved with a change from the Daltons to the Tracys. “Why, Miss Freeman Tracy, from New York,” Uncle Zach replied. “Her grandfather was Gen. Allen, one of our big bugs,—lived in the house with the biggest brass knocker, and has that tall monument in the cemetery. She’s comin,’ and that’s why the west wing is bottom side up, and Dot don’t know whether she’s on her head or her feet. It’s somethin’ to brag about havin’ Miss Tracy here. She wrote for a saloon to eat in. We’ve gin her the west parlor and four bedrooms for herself and daughter and niece and maid. None of ’em can sleep together. Nobody can nowadays. They are comin’ to-night, on the eight train.” Craig had been greatly interested in the Dalton story, though a little confused at the last, with so much heredity and environment and so many great-great-grandfathers. Still he managed to get a pretty good idea of it and was deciding in his mind to visit the old house again and go through the rooms where ’Tina’s ghost was said to walk on stormy nights. At the mention of Mrs. Tracy, who was coming with two young ladies, his thoughts were directed into a different channel. “I think I have heard of Mrs. Tracy. Is she very wealthy?” he asked. “Yes, piles of money, with diamond ear-rings as big as robins’ aigs. I’ve never seen ’em, but some woman from here was at Saratoga last summer, and said they was the talk of the town, and she never let ’em out of her sight. I hope she’ll bring ’em. I never seen such stuns. I wonder what they cost, and what do you s’pose she wants of a maid here, when we cook her victuals and serve it?” Craig did not reply. He was thinking of Mrs. Tracy and her daughter, who was a great belle and notorious flirt. He had heard of them at Saratoga as occupying the finest suite of rooms at the United States, where the daughter kept around her a crowd of gentlemen, whom she attracted or repelled as the fancy took her. He had only seen her at a distance, when it was impossible to tell just how she looked, nor did he care for a closer acquaintance, and when asked to call upon her had declined to do so. He detested flirts, and was not particularly interested in girls of any kind. Certainly not in Miss Tracy. Still he was glad she was coming. It would be a change, and he was getting tired with no company but Browning. There was no possible danger of his falling a victim to her wiles. He was not a ladies’ man, and if he were, a coquette of Miss Tracy’s style would be the last woman he should select for a wife. Of the niece he scarcely thought at all, except to ask Uncle Zach her name. Zacheus didn’t know. Mrs. Tracy telegraphed that morning that she was coming, and there must be a room for her.