“Niece Martha,” said Aunt Diana energetically, appearing in my room immediately after breakfast, “I do not approve of this division of our party; it is not what we planned.”

“What can I do, aunt? Sara ought not to pay hotel prices—”

“I am not speaking of Miss St. John; she can stay here if she pleases, of course, but you must come to us.”

“Sara might not like to be left alone, aunt. To be sure,” I continued, not without a grain of malice, “Mr. Hoffman is here, so she need not, he too lonely, but—”

“John Hoffman here?”

“Yes; we came here at his recommendation.”

Aunt Di bit her lips in high vexation; next to Mokes she prized John, who, although a person of most refractory and fatiguing ways, was yet possessed of undoubted Knickerbocker antec. . . Read More