The youngest, handsomest, and poorest of the famous Trenholme sisters sighed.

“You haven’t quite hit it,” she said, plaintively.  “I was moving gracefully at the arms of another.  Mamma had one of her periodical attacks of rheumatism in both elbows and shoulders, and I had to rub them for an hour with that horrid old liniment.  I hope you didn’t think that smelled like flowers.  You know, there were some West Point boys and a yacht load of young men from the city at last evening’s weekly dance.  I’ve known mamma to sit by an open window for three hours with one-half of her registering 85 degrees and the other half frostbitten, and never sneeze once.  But just let a bunch of ineligibles come around where I am, and she’ll begin to swell at the knuckles and shriek with pain.  And I have to take her to her room and rub her arms.  To see mamma dressed you’d be surprised to know the number of square inches of surface there are to her arms.  I think it must be delightful to be a hermit.  That—­cassock—­or gabardine, isn’t it?—­that you wear is so becoming.  Do you make it—­or them—­of course you must have changes—­yourself?  And what a blessed relief it must be to wear sandals instead of shoes!  Think how we must suffer—­no matter how small I buy my shoes they always pinch my toes.  Oh, why can’t there be lady hermits, too!”

The beautifulest and most adolescent Trenholme sister extended two slender blue ankles that ended in two enormous blue-silk bows that almost concealed two fairy Oxfords, also of one of the forty-seven shades of blue.  The hermit, as if impelled by a kind of reflex-telepathic action, drew his bare toes farther beneath his gunny-sacking.

“I have heard about the romance of your life,” said Miss Trenholme, softly.  “They have it printed on the back of the menu card at the inn.  Was she very beautiful and charming?”

“On the bills of fare!” muttered the hermit; “but what do I care for the world’s babble?  Yes, she was of the highest and grandest type.  Then,” he continued, “then I thought the world could never contain another equal to her.  So I forsook it and repaired to this mountain fastness to spend the remainder of my life alone—­to devote and dedicate my remaining years to her memory.”

“It’s grand,” said Miss Trenholme, “absolutely grand.  I think a hermit’s life is the ideal one.  No bill-collectors calling, no dressing for dinner—­how I’d like to be one!  But there’s no such luck for me.  If I don’t marry this season I honestly believe mamma will force me into settlement work or trimming hats.  It isn’t because I’m getting old or ugly; but we haven’t enough money left to butt in at any of the swell places any more.  And I don’t want to marry—­unless it’s somebody I like.  That’s why I’d like to be a hermit.  Hermits don’t ever marry, do they?”

“Hundreds of ’em,” said the hermit, “when they’ve found the right one.”

“But they’re hermits,” said the youngest and beautifulest, “because they’ve lost the right one, aren’t they?”