“Why, Nancy Arabella,” he said to Mrs Cowperwood on arriving one Sunday afternoon, and throwing the household into joyous astonishment at his unexpected and unheralded appearance, “you haven’t grown an inch!  I thought when you married old brother Hy here that you were going to fatten up like your brother.  But look at you!  I swear to Heaven you don’t weigh five pounds.”  And he jounced her up and down by the waist, much to the perturbation of the children, who had never before seen their mother so familiarly handled.

Henry Cowperwood was exceedingly interested in and pleased at the arrival of this rather prosperous relative; for twelve years before, when he was married, Seneca Davis had not taken much notice of him.

“Look at these little putty-faced Philadelphians,” he continued, “They ought to come down to my ranch in Cuba and get tanned up.  That would take away this waxy look.”  And he pinched the cheek of Anna Adelaide, now five years old.  “I tell you, Henry, you have a rather nice place here.”  And he looked at the main room of the rather conventional three-story house with a critical eye.

Measuring twenty by twenty-four and finished in imitation cherry, with a set of new Sheraton parlor furniture it presented a quaintly harmonious aspect.  Since Henry had become teller the family had acquired a piano—­a decided luxury in those days—­brought from Europe; and it was intended that Anna Adelaide, when she was old enough, should learn to play.  There were a few uncommon ornaments in the room—­a gas chandelier for one thing, a glass bowl with goldfish in it, some rare and highly polished shells, and a marble Cupid bearing a basket of flowers.  It was summer time, the windows were open, and the trees outside, with their widely extended green branches, were pleasantly visible shading the brick sidewalk.  Uncle Seneca strolled out into the back yard.

“Well, this is pleasant enough,” he observed, noting a large elm and seeing that the yard was partially paved with brick and enclosed within brick walls, up the sides of which vines were climbing.  “Where’s your hammock?  Don’t you string a hammock here in summer?  Down on my veranda at San Pedro I have six or seven.”

“We hadn’t thought of putting one up because of the neighbors, but it would be nice,” agreed Mrs. Cowperwood.  “Henry will have to get one.”

“I have two or three in my trunks over at the hotel.  My niggers make ’em down there.  I’ll send Manuel over with them in the morning.”

He plucked at the vines, tweaked Edward’s ear, told Joseph, the second boy, he would bring him an Indian tomahawk, and went back into the house.

“This is the lad that interests me,” he said, after a time, laying a hand on the shoulder of Frank.  “What did you name him in full, Henry?”

“Frank Algernon.”

“Well, you might have named him after me.  There’s something to this boy.  How would you like to come down to Cuba and be a planter, my boy?”