"As you know, my family silver has all gone up in smoke. Now yours hasn't. Suppose you sell me yours. What's it worth?"

"With or without the diamonds?"

"If I should ever marry, it would be advisable to have the diamonds."

"Well," said Jonstone, beginning to turn over a bundle of straws, with the object of selecting four which should be flawless, "I don't want to stick you. We have a complete list of the pieces, with their weights and dates. Some of the New York dealers could tell us what the collection would be worth in the open market. Double that sum in the name of sentiment, and I'll go you."

"I must have a free hand to hunt for the stuff in my own way— It's perfection—you never, never made a better one—now, how about the diamonds?"

"I have the weights. And you know the Jonstones were always particular about water."

"That's why they are all dead but you. Then you'll come?"

Bob Jonstone nodded.

"You'll have to lend me a suit of clothes—but, look here, Mel: suppose the silver and stuff has been lifted—doesn't exist any more? Wouldn't I, in selling it to you, be guilty of sharp practice?"

"Our great-great-grandfather, the Signer, doesn't exist any more, Bob. That silver is somewhere—in some form or other. I pay for it, and it's mine. Does it matter if I never see it or handle it? I shall always be able to allude to it—isn't that enough? As for you, you'll be able to pay all your mortgages, to fix the front door so's it won't have to be kept shut with a keg of nails, and to spend what is necessary on your fields."

"Of course," said Jonstone, who had finished his julep. "It afflicts me to part with what has been in the family so long."

"But you ought to be afflicted."

"Why?"

"Didn't you vote for Wilson?"

Jonstone nodded solemnly.

"Come, then," said Meredith, as if he were pardoning an erring child; "there's just time for one julep and to pack up our things. You'll just love New York. And when we get there we'll make up our minds whether we'll go to Newport or Bar Harbor. Bob, did it ever occur to you that you and I ought to get married? That looks as if it was going to be better than the other, though darker— What's the use of having ancestors if you're not going to be one?"

"Show me a girl as handsome as Sully's portrait of Great-grandmother Pringle, and I'll take notice."

"Why, every other girl in a Broadway chorus has got the old lady skinned to death, Bob!"

"You may be worldly-wiser than me, Mel, but you've lost your reverence. It's always been agreed in the family that Great-grandmother Pringle was the most beautiful woman in the South. And when a man says 'the South,' and refers at the same time to female charms, he has as good as said the whole world."