“You funny Florence!” she cried.

“Then will you give me Gammire?” Florence asked instantly.

“No.  We’ll bring him in the house now, and you can stay for lunch.”

Florence was imperfectly consoled, but she had a thought that brightened her a little.

“Well, there’ll be an awful time when grandpa comes home this afternoon—­but it certainly will be inter’sting!”

She proved a true prophet, at least to the extent that when Mr. Atwater opened his front gate that afternoon he was already in the presence of a deeply interested audience whose observation was unknown to him.  Through the interstices of the lace curtains at an open window, the gaze of Julia and Florence was concentrated upon him in a manner that might have disquieted even so opinionated and peculiar a man as Mr. Atwater, had he been aware of it; and Herbert likewise watched him fixedly from an unseen outpost.  Herbert had shown some recklessness, declaring loudly that he intended to lounge in full view; but when the well-known form of the ancestor was actually identified, coming up the street out of the distance, the descendant changed his mind.  The good green earth ceased to seem secure; and Herbert climbed a tree.  He surrounded himself with the deepest foliage; and beneath him some outlying foothills of Kitty Silver were visible, where she endeavoured to lurk in the concealment of a lilac bush.

Gammire was the only person in view.  He sat just in the middle of the top step of the veranda, and his air was that of an endowed and settled institution.  What passing traffic there was interested him but vaguely, not affecting the world to which he belonged—­that world being this house and yard, of which he felt himself now, beyond all question, the official dog.

It had been a rather hard-working afternoon, for he had done everything suggested to him as well as a great many other things that he thought of himself.  He had also made it clear that he had taken a fancy to everybody, but recognized Julia to be the head of the house and of his own universe; and though he was at the disposal of all her family and friends, he was at her disposal first.  Whithersoever she went, there would he go also, unless she otherwise commanded.  Just now she had withdrawn, closing the door, but he understood that she intended no permanent exclusion.  Who was this newcomer at the gate?

The newcomer came to a halt, staring intolerantly.  Then he advanced, slamming the gate behind him.  “Get out o’ here!” he said.  “You get off the place!”

Gammire regarded him seriously, not moving, while Mr. Atwater cast an eye about the lawn, seeming to search for something, and his gaze, thus roving, was arrested by a slight movement of great areas behind a lilac bush.  It appeared that the dome of some public building had covered itself with antique textiles and was endeavouring to hide there—­a failure.

“Kitty Silver!” he said.  “What are you doing?”