“That's it. And you have combined everything here. You have given me an idea. In our house we have a Japan room, and an Indian room, and a Chinese room, and an Otaheite, and I don't know what—Egyptian, Greek, and not one American, not a really American. That is, according to American ideas, for you have everything in these two rooms. I shall write to Mr. Mavick.” (Mr. Mavick never received the letter.)
When she came away it was with a profusion of thanks, and repeated invitations to drop in at the inn. Alice accompanied her to the first stone that marked the threshold of the side door, and was bowing her away, when Mr. Philip swung over the fence by the wood-shed, with a shot-gun on his shoulder, and swinging in his left hand a gray squirrel by its bushy tail, and was immediately in front of the group.
“Ah!” involuntarily from Mrs. Mavick. An introduction was inevitable.
“My cousin, Mr. Burnett, Mrs. Mavick.” Philip raised his cap and bowed.
“A hunter, I see.”
“Hardly, madam. In vacations I like to walk in the woods with a gun.”
“Then you are not—”
“No,” said Philip, smiling, “unfortunately I cannot do this all the time.”
“You are of the city, then?”
“With the firm of Hunt, Sharp & Tweedle.”