repaid for my trouble. Indeed, as she faced me to thank me I could see
that her eyes were dimmed.

"Wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Now he looks like some one!" And I
distinctly perceived that only just in time did she repress an impulse
to grasp me by the hand. Under the circumstances I am not sure that I
wouldn't have overlooked the lapse had she yielded to it. "Wonderful!"
she said again.

[Illustration: "WONDERFUL! NOW HE LOOKS LIKE SOME ONE"]

Hereupon Cousin Egbert, much embarrassed, leaned his stick against the
wall; the stick fell, and in reaching down for it his hat fell, and in
reaching for that he dropped his gloves; but I soon restored him to
order and he was safely seated where he might be studied in further
detail, especially as to his moustaches, which I had considered rather
the supreme touch.

"He looks exactly like some well-known clubman," exclaimed Mrs. Effie.

Her relative growled as if he were quite ready to savage her.

"Like a man about town," she murmured. "Who would have thought he had
it in him until you brought it out?" I knew then that we two should
understand each other.

The slight tension was here relieved by two of the hotel servants who
brought tea things. At a nod from Mrs. Effie I directed the laying out
of these.