Moreover, the already heavily curtailed list of guests would have to be narrowed to even smaller proportions.

The presence of so many as the score of selected guests might prove to be hazardous in view of the old gentleman's state of nerves, not to say health.

Mr.Thorpe was able to be up and about with the aid of the imperturbable Wade, but he was exceedingly irascible and hard to manage.

He was annoyed with Braden.

When the strange illness came early in the night, he sent out for his grandson.
He wanted him to be there if anything serious was to result from the stroke,--he persisted in calling it a stroke, scornfully describing his attack as a "rush of blood to the head from a heart that had been squeezed too severely by old Father Time." Braden was not to be found.