"Hello, you strangers! I thought you'd be out this afternoon. Isn't it ripping weather?" he greeted them. "Where's Dave?" "He's gone to Bridgeton with Father," answered Sue, "but where have _you_ been all this time? Not sick, I hope?" The boy's face clouded and he dug his shovel viciously into a snowbank. "No, not sick, but dilly-dallying around the house, helping to wait on that old gentleman. They don't seem to care how much time I lose." It was the first time the girls had ever heard him speak so bitterly. "We heard that you had a visitor," said Carol, striving hard to seem only politely interested. "Oh, we have a visitor, all right, but I'm blest if I know why he's taken up his abode with us, nor even who he is, for that matter." At this rather astonishing statement both girls looked somewhat startled. "I know it sounds queer to say it," went on the boy, "and I'm not sure they'd thank me for saying it, either, but it's the honest truth, and I've got to say it to some one, or I'll explode with indignation." "But what do you call him, if you don't know who he is?" queried Sue. "Well, he _says_ his name is Monsieur de Vaubert, but I strongly doubt it. I found his handkerchief lying on a chair yesterday, and it had the initial F on it. Later I asked Aunt Yvonne what his first name was, and she said 'Philippe.' So can you figure out where F comes in? I can't." "All that Aunt and Uncle will tell me about him," he went on, "is that he is a descendant of an old friend of my father's family in France; that he has always been much interested in me and has come over here to visit and make my acquaintance. It sounds all right as far as it goes, but I'm morally certain that that isn't the whole of it. They treat him as if he were some sort of high mogul, and he treats them in the most politely condescending manner you ever saw. But the way he acts toward me is a caution. In some ways you'd think I was the Grand Lama of Tibet, and that he was my most humble slave. Then at other times he gets so dictatorial about my studies and work and the way I spend my time that I just have to hold on to something to prevent going up in the air. I confess that I don't know what he's driving at, and I could chew his head off sometimes, I get so mad. And yet in other ways he's a fine old chap, and I can't help but admire him. Here he comes now. He said he would come out a few moments this afternoon." They all looked across the Green as he spoke, to see the figure of an elderly gentleman, very much muffled up in a fur coat, slowly pacing down the walk. He seemed about seventy-five years of age, and he walked with a visible stoop, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent slightly forward. His eyes were black and piercing, and his hair and mustache were almost white. His nose was sharp and eagle-like, and his whole appearance was very distinguished and foreign. Both Sue and Carol were decidedly impressed.