“If I could catch that ghost I’d shake it!” declared Alicia.  And we went back to our figuring, with a sort of desperate courage. “Now will you get those clothes, Sophy Smith?” she resumed, through her teeth, and the pink came back to her cheek, and her eyes deepened.  “And do you agree to stick it out, you and I shoulder to shoulder, town or no town, ha’nts or no ha’nts; and win out?”

“Yes!” said I.

CHAPTER VII

A BRIGHT PARTICULAR STAR

Wire from The Author, New York City, to Miss S. Smith, Hyndsville, South Carolina: 

     Photos received.  Furniture noted.  It’s pretty, but is it
     art?

Wire from Miss Smith to The Author: 

     What is Art?

Wire from The Author: 

     Sometimes an invention of the devil.  Is your stuff Madison
     Avenue or Grand Rapids?  Reply.

Wire from Miss Smith: 

     Madison Avenue and Grand Rapids hadn’t been invented when
     Hynds House was furnished.

Wire from The Author: 

     Maybe not, but mightn’t be same furniture.  Have been stung
     before.  Can’t be genuine.  Too much of it.

Wire from Miss Smith: 

     Please yourself.

Wire from The Author: 

Coming to investigate.  Won’t sleep in anything but pineapple bed; won’t sit in anything but carved chair; can’t pray without prie-dieu.  If spurious will publicly gibbet you and probably burn your house down.  Hold southwest room my arrival.

Alicia laughed, and cuddled those yellow slips.

“I knew this was an enchanted place!” she cried.  “Oh, Sophy, it’s working!  He’s coming, he’s coming, and he’s the biggest ever, and he’s going to stay!  Sophy, think of the advertising!”

“He will probably be detestable.  Geniuses are generally horrid to live with.  And there will be something the matter with his digestion; there is always something the matter with their digestion.”

“From swallowing all the flattery shoveled upon them, poor dears,” Alicia explained charitably.  “Don’t worry about his digestion:  leave it to Mary Magdalen’s waffles.  Hooray!  Hynds House stock is booming!”

It was.

From the head of our firm: 

     My dear Miss Smith: 

I have your interesting letter and the delightful photographs, which have so completely charmed Mrs. Westmacote and me that we have decided it wouldn’t be good business to miss Hynds House on our trip South this year.

     Mrs. Westmacote asks if you could also accommodate a cousin
     of hers, Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, a lady deeply
     interested in the colonial homes of America.

You must allow me heartily to congratulate you upon your great good fortune in falling heir to such a wonderful old place; and to wish you many happy and prosperous years in it.

I shall telegraph you when to expect us.  With all good
wishes,