“Reeves is going to take him into the business,” returned Mr. Evringham.  “I don’t know why or wherefore, but the mere fact is decidedly promising.”

“Oh, who can tell if that will last!” returned the other with scornful pessimism.  “Nat has let too many cotillions to do anything else well.  I can only pray that he will get away without seeing Eloise.  Mrs. Bonnell has invited us to make her a visit this summer.  I certainly shall not go one step!”

A sudden sound of laughter was heard on the quiet air.  Mrs. Evringham leaned forward.  “There are the children now,” she said, as figures turned in at the gateway; “and who is that?  It is”—­with desperation,—­“he’s here!  Nat Bonnell is with them!”

She sat upright with disapproval, clasping the arm of her chair, while her father-in-law looked curiously at the approaching group.  His gaze fixed on the young man with the well-set head who, swinging his hat in his hand, was talking fast to Eloise of something that amused them both.  Jewel apparently interrupted him and he stooped with a quick motion, and in a second she was sitting on his shoulder, shrieking in gleeful surprise.

Thus they approached the piazza and came close before noting that it was occupied.

“Grandpa, see me!” cried Jewel delightedly.

Bonnell met the unsmiling gaze of his host as Mr. Evringham rose, and then caught sight of Mrs. Evringham stonily gazing from her chair.

“Ah, how do you do?” he called laughingly.

“Jove, he is a good looking chap!” thought the host, and Bonnell set Jewel down at his feet with such velocity that Anna Belle was cast heavily to earth.

“A thousand pardons!” exclaimed Nat, catching up the doll by the skirt and restoring her.

Jewel gave him a bright look. “She knows there is no sensation in matter,” she said scornfully.

Poor Anna Belle!  The topography of the ravine was full of hazards for her, and her seasons there were always so adventurous and full of sudden and unlooked-for bumps that her philosophy was well tested, and she might reasonably have complained of this gratuitous blow; but she smiled on, as Jewel hugged her.  Her mental poise was marvelous, whatever might be said of the physical.

Eloise introduced her friend and went to her mother’s side, while Bonnell shook hands with Mr. Evringham and exchanged some words concerning Mr. Reeves and business matters.

“Wide awake,” was the older man’s mental comment.  “Doesn’t seem at all the sort of person to be fooled about that healing business.  Good eye.  Good manner.  Perhaps this was Ballard’s handicap all the time.  I guess you’re in for it, Madge.”

Nat moved to greet Mrs. Evringham, who gave him no welcoming smile.  She leaned back listlessly, not caring what effect she produced.  He seemed to her a part of the combination entered into by the Fates to thwart and annoy.

Bonnell knew her nearly as well as Eloise did.  “I’m sorry you’re under the weather,” he said sympathetically, when he had discovered that, in his own phrase, there was “nothing doing.”  “I received a letter from my mother to-day, in which she impressed upon me that she expected you both by the middle of June.”