"But, papa, you must really like slang, now really! Uncle Nicholas could never tolerate it."
"There you strike a chord! I desire you to speak nothing but slang if Nick objects."
Agreeable badinage had always been a favorite pastime with Jacob Stanwood. If Elizabeth had but guessed it, a taste of it was worth more to him than all the filial devotion she held in reserve.
"And now for the swap," she said. "You are not modest, I hope?"
"Heaven forbid!"
"Well, then! Miss Hunniman—you remember Miss Hunniman? She used to make mama's dresses, and now she makes mine. She told me only a year ago that whenever she read about Sir Galahad or the Chevalier Bayard or Richard the Lion-hearted, she always thought of you; which was very inconvenient, because it made her mix them up, and she never could remember which of them went to the Crusades and which of them did not!"
Anything in the nature of a reminiscence was sure to jar upon Stanwood. He preferred to consider the charming young person beside him as an agreeable episode; he half resented any reminder of the permanence of their rela-
