"But YOU'VE never seen him?"

"No--but--" She stopped, and, lifting one shoulder, threw her spirited
head sideways, in a pretty deprecatory way, with elevated eyebrows and
an expression intended to show the otherwise untranslatable character of
her impression. But it showed quite as pleasantly the other fact, that
she was the daughter of a foreigner, an old French military explorer,
and that she had retained even in Anglo-Saxon Lakeville some of the
Gallic animation.

"Well, how many of you girls are going with me to meet him at the
station?" said Gabriel, dismissing with masculine promptness the lesser
question. "It's time to be off."

"I'd like to go," said Kitty, "and so would Cousin Jane; but really,
papa, you see if YOU don't know him, and WE don't either, and you've got
to satisfy yourself that it's the right man, and then introduce YOURSELF
and then us--and all this on the platform before everybody--it makes it
rather embarrassing for us. And then, as he's your younger brother and
we're supposed to be his affectionate nieces, you know, it would make
HIM feel SO ridiculous!"

"And if he were to KISS you," said Marie tragically, "and then turn out
not to be him!"

"So," continued Kitty, "you'd better take Cousin John, who was more in
Uncle Sylvester's time, to represent the Past of the family, and perhaps
Mr. Gunn"--

"To represent the future, I suppose?" interrupted Gabriel in a wicked