"And it is really you?" pushing me off at arm's length the better to observe the changes that had taken place. "You grow more like your father; if you hadn't that beard you would be the exact picture of your father when he married your mother. Oh, what a pretty wedding it was!"

"I shall have to take your word for it. I was up and about, however, at the tin anniversary."

"I remember. Oh, but what a racket you made among the pans!" She laughed softly at the recollection.

"I was properly spanked that night," I admitted.

And straightway we uncovered thirty and twenty years respectively.

"By the way," said I carelessly, "is Nancy Marsden engaged to be married?"

"Nancy? She never will be, to my idea. She recently turned down a real duke: a duke that had money and everything."

"And everything: is that castles?" I inquired.

"Nonsense!"