“I’m Ruyven Varick,” he said.  “These girls are fools to bait men of our age—­” He broke off to seize Dorothy by the arm.  “Give me that watch, you vixen!”

His sister scornfully freed her arm, and Ruyven stood sullenly clutching a handful of torn lace.

“Why don’t you present us to our cousin Ormond?” spoke up a maid of sixteen.

“Who wants to make your acquaintance?” retorted Ruyven, edging again towards his sister.

I protested that I did; and Dorothy, with mock empressement, presented me to Cecile Butler, a slender, olive-skinned girl with pretty, dark eyes, who offered me her hand to kiss in such determined manner that I bowed very low to cover my smile, knowing that she had witnessed my salute to my cousin Dorothy and meant to take nothing less for herself.

“And those boys yonder are Harry Varick and Sam Butler, my cousins,” observed Dorothy, nonchalantly relapsing into barbarism to point them out separately with her pink-tipped thumb; “and that lad on the stairs is Benny.  Come on, we’re to throw hunting-knives for pennies.  Can you?—­but of course you can.”

I looked around at my barbarian kin, who had produced hunters’ knives from recesses in their clothing, and now gathered impatiently around Dorothy, who appeared to be the leader in their collective deviltries.

“All the same, that watch is mine,” broke out Ruyven, defiantly.  “I’ll leave it to our cousin Ormond—­” but Dorothy cut in:  “Cousin, it was done in this manner:  father lost his timepiece, and the law is that whoever finds things about the house may keep them.  So we all ran to the porch where father had fallen off his horse last night, and I think we all saw it at the same time; and I, being the older and stronger—­”

“You’re not the stronger!” cried Sam and Harry, in the same breath.

“I,” repeated Dorothy, serenely, “being not only older than Ruyven by a year, but also stronger than you all together, kept the watch, spite of your silly clamor—­and mean to keep it.”

“Then we matched shillings for it!” cried Cecile.

“It was only fair; we all discovered it,” explained Dorothy.  “But Ruyven matched with a Spanish piece where the date was under the reverse, and he says he won.  Did he, cousin?”

“Mint-dates always match!” said Ruyven; “gentlemen of our age understand that, Cousin George, don’t we?”

“Have I not won fairly?” asked Dorothy, looking at me.  “If I have not, tell me.”

With that, Sam Butler and Harry set up a clamor that they and Cecile had been unfairly dealt with, and all appealed to me until, bewildered, I sat down on the stairs and looked wistfully at Dorothy.

“In Heaven’s name, cousins, give me something to eat and drink before you bring your lawsuits to me for judgment,” I said.

“Oh,” cried Dorothy, biting her lip, “I forgot.  Come with me, cousin!” She seized a bell-rope and rang it furiously, and a loud gong filled the hall with its brazen din; but nobody came.