CHAPTER V.
"How awfully odd it seems, your knowing Hobart!" Bertrand began, as they were walking on together. "Your father's name had suggested nothing to him."
"Quite naturally," said Stella, smiling. "There isn't much significance in Gray."
"You met him in society in New York, did you?" asked Bertrand.
"I met him at my aunt's house four years ago, when I was considered ineligible for society. He was intimate at the house, and used to come familiarly when I was allowed to appear. In that way I got to know him pretty well."
"Four winters ago I was still at college: so there would have been no chance of my meeting you. But Estcott knows Mrs. Lacy. Did you ever meet him there?"
"No," said Stella, "I met very few gentlemen. Are you all four New-Yorkers?"
"Three of us are. Mr. Bell, whom we all call Unc.,—short for Uncle,—is from nowhere in particular, or rather from every country on the habitable globe. I wish you knew him; though perhaps a young lady would see little in him to fancy. None the less he's the grandest fellow alive."
"I suppose you all find it necessary to be very fond of each other, living together as you do."
"Yes; it's the only way to keep from hating each other violently. But really I don't think four fellows could begot together who could suit each other better; though the real secret of our harmony is Unc.'s control of us all. He keeps us pretty closely under whip, except Hobart, whom he allows some license to, because he says he can stand it. He thinks Estcott and me a couple of infants. Don't you think Hobart's awfully good-looking?" he said, suddenly. "I believe he looks handsomer, if anything, in his rancher's costume."
Stella was saved the necessity of a reply by the eagerness with which the young man went on:
"He was looking over a lot of old letters the other day, in clearing out his desk, and he suddenly brought to light a photograph of himself that was the swellest thing you ever saw. I think it had been returned to him by some girl he had had an affair with, for it fell out of the folds of a letter, and I picked it up. It was a full-length picture, taken in full evening dress, his hair parted clean in the middle, as he wears it, and everything so well done about him. Unc. took pos-
