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“He’s sure to wear a big beard; they all do when they first come back,” said Amos Gunn, with metropolitan oraculousness.

“He has a big curling mustache, long silken hair, and broad shoulders,” said Marie du Page.

There was such piquant conviction in the manner of the speaker, who was also a very pretty girl, that they all turned towards her, and Kitty quickly said,–

“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 whisper.

“To represent a name that most men of the world in New York and San Francisco know,” went on Kitty, without a blush. “It would make recognition and introduction easier. And take an extra fur with you, dear–not for HIM but for yourself. I suppose he’s lived so much in the open air as to laugh at our coddling.”

“I don’t know about that,” said her father thoughtfully; “the last telegram I have from him, en route, says he’s half frozen, and wants a close carriage sent to the station.”

“Of course,” said Marie impatiently, “you forget the poor creature comes from burning canyons and hot golden sands and perpetual sunshine.”

“Very well; but come along, Marie, and see how I’ve prepared his room,” and as her father left the drawing-room Kitty carried off her old schoolfellow upstairs.

The room selected for the coming Sylvester had been one of the elaborate guest-chambers, but was now stripped of its more luxurious furniture and arranged with picturesque yet rural extravagance. A few rare buffalo, bear, and panther skins were disposed over the bare floor, and even displayed gracefully over some elaborately rustic chairs. The handsome French bedstead had been displaced for a small wrought-iron ascetic-looking couch covered with a gorgeously striped Mexican blanket. The fireplace had been dismantled of its steel grate, and the hearth extended so as to allow a pile of symmetrically heaped moss-covered hickory logs to take its place. The walls were covered with trophies of the chase, buck-horns and deer-heads, and a number of Indian arrows stood in a sheaf in the corners beside a few modern guns and rifles.

“Perfectly lovely,” said Marie, “but”–with a slight shiver of her expressive shoulders–“a little cold and outdoorish, eh?”

“Nonsense,” returned Kitty dictatorially, “and if he IS cold, he can easily light those logs. They always build their open fires under a tree. Why, even Mr. Gunn used to do that when he was camping out in the Adirondacks last summer. I call it perfectly comfortable and SO natural.” Nevertheless, they had both tucked their chilly hands under the fleecy shawls they had snatched from the hall for this hyperborean expedition.