Queed: A Novel

One instant thought the news of the Colonel's death struck from nearly everybody's mind: He'll miss the Reunion. For within a few days the city was to witness that yearly gathering of broken armies which, of all assemblages among men, the Colonel had loved most dearly. In thirty years, he had not missed one, till now. They buried the old warrior with pomp and circumstance, not to speak of many tears, and his young assistant in the sanctum came home from the graveside with a sense of having lost a valued counselor and friend. Only the home to which the assistant returned with this feeling was not the Third Hall Back of Mrs. Paynter's, sometimes known as the Scriptorium, but a whole suite of pleasant rooms, upstairs and down, in a nice little house on Duke of Gloucester Street. For Nicolovius had made his contemplated move on the first of May, and Queed had gone with him.

It was half-past six o'clock on a pretty summer's evening. Queed opened the house-door with a latch-key and went upstairs to the comfortable living-room, which faithfully reproduced the old professor's sitting-room at Mrs. Paynter's. Nicolovius, in his black silk cap, was sitting near the open window, reading and smoking a strong cigarette.

"Ah, here you are! I was just thinking that you were rather later than usual this evening."

"Yes, I went to Colonel Cowles's funeral. It was decidedly impressive."

"Ah!"

Queed dropped down into one of Nicolovius's agreeable chairs and let his eyes roam over the room. He was extremely comfortable in this house; a little too comfortable, he was beginning to think now, considering that he paid but seven dollars and fifty cents a week towards its support. He had a desk and lamp all his own in the living-room, a table and lamp in his bedroom, ease and independence over two floors. An old negro man looked after the two gentlemen and gave them excellent things to eat. The house was an old one, and small; it was in an unfashionable part of town, and having stood empty for some time, could be had for thirty-five dollars a month. However, Nicolovius had wiped out any economy here by spending his money freely to repair and beautify. He had had workmen in the house for a month, papering, painting, plumbing, and altering.

"Dozens of people could not get in the church," said Queed. "They stood outside in the street till the service was over."

Nicolovius was looking out of the window, and answered casually. "I daresay he was an excellent man according to his lights."

"Coming to know him very well in the past year, I found that his lights stood high."

"As high, I am sure, as the environment in which he was born and raised made possible."

"You have a low opinion, then, of ante-bellum civilization in the South?"

"Who that knows his history could have otherwise?"

"You know history, I admit," said Queed, lightly falling upon the side issue, "surprisingly, indeed, considering that you have not read it for so many years."

"A man is not likely to forget truths burned into him when he is young."

"Everything depends," said Queed, returning to his muttons, "upon how you are going to appraise a civilization. If the only true measure is economic efficiency, no one can question that the old Southern system was one of the worst ever conceived."

"Can you, expert upon organized society as you are, admit any doubts upon that point?"

"I am admitting doubts upon a good many points these days."

Nicolovius resumed his cigarette. Talk languished. Both men enjoyed a good silence. Many a supper they ate through without a word. The old man's attitude toward the young one was charming. He had sloughed off some of the too polished blandness of his manner, and now offered a simpler meeting ground of naturalness and kindliness. They had shared the Duke of Gloucester Street roof-tree for a month, but Queed did not yet accept it as a matter of course. He was decidedly more prone to be analytical than he had been a year ago. Yet whatever could be urged against it, the little house was in one way making a subtle tug upon his regard: it was the nearest thing to a home that he had ever had in his life, or was ever likely to have.

"And when will the Post directors meet to choose his successor?"

"I haven't heard. Very soon, I should think."

"It is certain, I suppose," said Nicolovius, "that they will name you?"

"Oh, not at all—by no means! I am merely receptive, that is all."

Queed glanced at his watch and rose. "There is half an hour before supper, I see. I think I must turn it to account."

Nicolovius looked regretful. "Why not allow yourself this minute's rest, and me the pleasure of your society?"

Queed hesitated. "No—I think my duty is to my work."

He passed into the adjoining room, which was his bedroom, and shut the door. Here at his table, he passed all of the hours that he spent in the house, except after supper, when he did his work in the sitting-room with Nicolovius. He felt that, in honor, he owed some companionship, of the body at least, to the old man in exchange for the run of the house, and his evenings were his conscientious concession to his social duty. But sometimes he felt the surprising and wholly irrational impulse to concede more, to give the old man a larger measure of society than he was, so to say, paying for. He felt it now as he seated himself methodically and opened his table drawer.

From a purely selfish point of view, which was the only point of view from which such a compact need be considered, he could hardly think that his new domestic arrangement was a success. Greater comforts he had, of course, but it is not upon comforts that the world's work hangs. The important facts were that he was paying as much as he had paid at Mrs. Paynter's, and was enjoying rather less privacy. He and Nicolovius were friends of convenience only. Yet somehow the old professor managed to obtrude himself perpetually upon his consciousness. The young man began to feel an annoying sense of personal responsibility toward him, an impulse which his reason rejected utterly.

He was aware that, personally, he wished himself back at Mrs. Paynter's and the Scriptorium. A free man, in possession of this knowledge, would immediately pack up and return. But that was just the trouble. He who had always, hitherto, been the freest man in the world, appeared no longer to be free. He was aware that he would find it very difficult to walk into the sitting-room at this moment, and tell Nicolovius that he was going to leave. The old man would probably make a scene. The irritating thing about it was that Nicolovius, being as solitary in the great world as he himself, actually minded his isolation, and was apparently coming to depend upon him.

But after all, he was contented here, and his work was prospering largely. The days of his preparation for his Post labors were definitely over. He no longer had to read or study; he stood upon his feet, and carried his editorial qualifications under his hat. His duties as assistant editor occupied him but four or five hours a day; some three hours a day—the allotment was inexact, for the Schedule had lost its first rigid precision—to the Sciences of Physical Culture and Human Intercourse; all the rest to the Science of Sciences. Glorious mornings, and hardly less glorious nights, he gave, day after day, week after week, to the great book; and because of his astonishingly enhanced vitality, he made one hour tell now as an hour and a half had told in the period of the establishment of the Scriptorium.

And now, without warning and prematurely, the jade Fortune had pitched a bomb at this new Revised Schedule of his, leaving him to decide whether he would patch up the pieces or not. And he had decided that he would not patch them up. Colonel Cowles was dead. The directors of the Post might choose him to succeed the Colonel, or they might not. But if they did choose him, he had finally made up his mind that he would accept the election.

In his attitude toward the newspaper, Queed was something like those eminent fellow-scientists of his who have set out to "expose" spiritualism and "the occult," and have ended as the most gullible customers of the most dubious of "mediums." The idea of being editor for its own sake, which he had once jeered and flouted, he had gradually come to consider with large respect. The work drew him amazingly; it was applied science of a peculiarly fascinating sort. And in the six days of the Colonel's illness in May, when he had full charge of the editorial page—and again now—he had an exhilarating consciousness of personal power which lured him, oddly, more than any sensation he had ever had in his life.

No inducements of this sort, alone, could ever have drawn him from his love. However, his love was safe, in any case. If they made him editor, they would give him an assistant. He would keep his mornings for himself—four hours a day. In the long vigil last night, he had threshed the whole thing out. On a four-hour schedule he could finish his book in four years and a half more:—an unprecedentedly early age to have completed so monumental a work. And who could say that in thus making haste slowly, he would not have acquired a breadth of outlook, and closer knowledge of the practical conditions of life, which would be advantageously reflected in the Magnum Opus itself?

The young man sat at his table, the sheaf of yellow sheets which made up the chapter he was now working on ready under his hand. Around him were his reference books, his note-books, his pencils and erasers, all the neat paraphernalia of his trade. Everything was in order; yet he touched none of them. Presently his eyes fell upon his open watch, and his mind went off into new channels, or rather into old channels which he thought he had abandoned for this half-hour at any rate. In five minutes more, he put away his manuscript, picked up his watch, and strolled back into the sitting-room.

Nicolovius was sitting where he had left him, except that now he was not reading but merely staring out of the window. He glanced around with a look of pleased surprise and welcome.

"Ah-h! Did genius fail to burn?" he asked, employing a bromidic phrase which Queed particularly detested.

"That is one way of putting it, I suppose."

"Or did you take pity on my solitariness? You must not let me become a drag upon you."

Queed, dropping into a chair, rather out of humor, made no reply. Nicolovius continued to look out of the window.

"I see in the Post," he presently began again, "that Colonel Cowles, after getting quite well, broke himself down again in preparing for the so-called Reunion. It seems rather hard to have to give one's life for such a rabble of beggars."

"That is how you regard the veterans, is it?"

"Have you ever seen the outfit?"

"Never."

"I have lived here long enough to learn something of them. Look at them for yourself next week. Mix with them. Talk with them. You will find them worth a study—and worth nothing else under the sun."

"I have been looking forward to doing something of that sort," said Queed, introspectively.

Had not Miss Weyland, the last time he had seen her—namely, one evening about two months before,—expressly invited him to come and witness the Reunion parade from her piazza?

"You will see," said Nicolovius, in his purring voice, "a lot of shabby old men, outside and in, who never did an honest day's work in their lives."

He paused, finished his cigarette and suavely resumed:

"They went to war as young men, because it promised to be more exciting than pushing a plow over a worn-out hillside. Or because there was nothing else to do. Or because they were conscripted and kicked into it. They came out of the war the most invincible grafters in history. The shiftless boor of a stable-boy found himself transformed into a shining hero, and he meant to lie back and live on it for the rest of his days. Be assured that he understood very well the cash value of his old uniform. If he had a peg-leg or an empty sleeve, so much the more impudently could he pass around his property cap. For forty years, he and his mendicant band have been a cursed albatross hung around the necks of their honest fellows. Able-bodied men, they have lolled back and eaten up millions of dollars, belonging to a State which they pretend to love and which, as they well know, has needed every penny for the desperate struggle of existence. Since the political party which dominates this State is too cowardly to tell them to go to work or go to the devil, it will be a God's mercy when the last one of them is in his grave. You may take my word for that."

But Queed, being a scientist by passion, never took anybody's word for anything. He always went to the original sources of information, and found out for himself. It was a year now since he had begun saturating himself in the annals of the State and the South, and he had scoured the field so effectually that Colonel Cowles himself had been known to appeal to him on a point of history, though the Colonel had forty years' start on him, and had himself helped to make that history.

Therefore Queed knew that Nicolovius, by taking the case of one soldier in ten, perhaps, or twenty or fifty, and offering it as typical of the whole, was bitterly caricaturing history; and he wondered why in the world the old man cared to do it.

"My own reading of the recent history of the South," said Queed, "can hardly sustain such a view."

"You have only to read further to be convinced."

"But I thought you yourself never read recent history."

Nicolovius flung him a sharp look, which the young man, staring thoughtfully at the floor, missed. The old professor laughed.

"My dear boy! I read it on the lips of Major Brooke, I read it daily in the newspapers, I read it in such articles as your Colonel Cowles wrote about this very Reunion. I cannot get away from history in the making, if I would. Ah, there is the supper bell—I'm quite ready for it, too. Let us go down."

They went down arm in arm. On the stairs Nicolovius said: "These Southern manifestations interest me because, though extreme, they are after all so absurdly typical of human nature. I have even seen the same sort of thing in my own land."

Queed, though he knew the history of Ireland very well, could not recall any parallel to the United Confederate Veterans in the annals of that country. Still, a man capable of distorting history as Nicolovius distorted it could always find a parallel to anything anywhere.

When the meal was about half over, Queed said:—

"You slept badly last night, didn't you?"

"Yes—my old enemy. The attack soon passed. However, you may be sure that it is a comfort at such times to know that I am not alone."

"If you should need any—ahem—assistance, I assume that you will call me," said Queed, after a pause.

"Thank you. You can hardly realize what your presence here, your companionship and, I hope I may say, your friendship, mean to me."

Queed glanced at him over the table, and hastily turned his glance away. He had surprised Nicolovius looking at him with a curiously tender look in his black diamond eyes.

The young man went to the office that night, worried by two highly irritating ideas. One was that Nicolovius was most unjustifiably permitting himself to become dependent upon him. The other was that it was very peculiar that a Fenian refugee should care to express slanderous views of the soldiers of a Lost Cause. Both thoughts, once introduced into the young man's mind, obstinately stuck there.

The Post directors gathered in special meeting on Monday. Their first act was to adopt some beautiful resolutions, prepared by Charles Gardiner West, in memory of the editor who had served the paper so long and so well. Next they changed the organization of the staff, splitting the late Colonel's heavy duties in two, by creating the separate position of managing editor; this official to have complete authority over the news department of the paper, as the editor had over its editorial page. The directors named Evan Montague, the able city editor of the Post, to fill the new position, while promoting the strongest of the reporters to fill the city desk.

The chairman, Stewart Byrd, then announced that he was ready to receive nominations for, or hear discussion about, the editorship.

One of the directors, Mr. Hopkins, observed that, as he viewed it, the directors should not feel restricted to local timber in the choice of a successor to the Colonel. He said that the growing importance of the Post entitled it to an editor of the first ability, and that the directors should find such a one, whether in New York, or Boston, or San Francisco.

Another director, Mr. Boggs, remarked that it did not necessarily follow that a thoroughly suitable man must be a New York, Boston, or San Francisco man. Unless he was greatly deceived, there was an eminently suitable man, not merely in the city, but in the office of the Post, where, since Colonel Cowles's death, he was doing fourteen hours of excellent work per day for the sum of fifteen hundred dollars per annum.

"Mr. Boggs's point," said Mr. Hickok, a third director, who looked something like James E. Winter, "is exceedingly well taken. A United States Senator from a Northern State is a guest in my house for Reunion week. The Senator reads the editorials in the Post with marked attention, has asked me the name of the writer, and has commended some of his utterances most highly. The Senator tells me that he never reads the editorials in his own paper—a Boston paper, Mr. Hopkins, by the bye—his reason being that they are never worth reading."

Mr. Shorter and Mr. Porter, fourth and fifth directors, were much struck with Mr. Hickok's statement. They averred that they had made a point of reading the Post editorials during the Colonel's absence, with a view to sizing up the assistant, and had been highly pleased with the character of his work.

Mr. Wilmerding, a sixth director, declared that the Colonel had, in recent months, more than once remarked to him that the young man was entirely qualified to be his successor. In fact, the Colonel had once said that he meant to retire before a great while, and, of course with the directors' approval, turn over the editorial helm to the assistant. Therefore, he, Mr. Wilmerding, had pleasure in nominating Mr. Queed for the position of editor of the Post.

Mr. Shorter and Mr. Porter said that they had pleasure in seconding this nomination.

Mr. Charles Gardiner West, a seventh director, was recognized for a few remarks. Mr. West expressed his intense gratification over what had been said in eulogy of Mr. Queed. This gratification, some might argue, was not wholly disinterested, since it was Mr. West who had discovered Mr. Queed and sent him to the Post. To praise the able editor was therefore to praise the alert, watchful, and discriminating director. (Smiles.) Seriously, Mr. Queed's work, especially during the last few months, had been of the highest order, and Mr. West, having worked beside him more than once, ventured to say that he appreciated his valuable qualities better than any other director. If the Colonel had but lived a year or two longer, there could not, in his opinion, be the smallest question as to what step the honorable directors should now take. But as it was, Mr. West, as Mr. Queed's original sponsor on the Post, felt it his duty to call attention to two things. The first was the young man's extreme youth. The second was the fact that he was a stranger to the State, having lived there less than two years. At his present rate of progress, it was of course patent to any observer that he was a potential editor of the Post, and a great one. But might it not be, on the whole, desirable—Mr. West merely suggested the idea in the most tentative way, and wholly out of his sense of sponsorship for Mr. Queed—to give him a little longer chance to grow and broaden and learn, before throwing the highest responsibility and the final honors upon him?

Mr. West's graceful and sensible remarks made a distinct impression upon the directors, and Mr. Hopkins took occasion to say that it was precisely such thoughts as these that had led him to suggest looking abroad for a man. Mr. Shorter and Mr. Porter asserted that they would deprecate doing anything that Mr. West, with his closer knowledge of actual conditions, thought premature. Mr. Boggs admitted that the ability to write editorials of the first order was not all that should be required of the editor of the Post. It might be doubtful, thought he, whether so young a man could represent the Post properly on occasions of a semi-public nature, or in emergency situations such as occasionally arose in an editorial office.

Mr. Wilmerding inquired the young man's age, and upon being told that he was under twenty-six, remarked that only very exceptional abilities could counteract such youth as that.

"That," said Mr. Hickok, glancing cursorily at Charles Gardiner West, "is exactly the sort of abilities Mr. Queed possesses."

Discussion flagged. The chairman asked if they were ready for a vote upon Mr. Queed.

"No, no—let's take our time," said Mr. Wilmerding.

"Perhaps somebody has other nominations to offer."

No one seemed to have other nominations to offer. Some minutes were consumed by random suggestions and unprogressive recommendations. Busy directors began to look at their watches.

"Look here, Gard—I mean Mr. West," suddenly said young Theodore Fyne, the baby of the board. "Why couldn't we persuade you to take the editorship?... Resign from the college, you know?"

"Now you have said something!" cried Mr. Hopkins, enthusiastically.

Mr. West, by a word and a gesture, indicated that the suggestion was preposterous and the conversation highly unwelcome.

But it was obvious that young Mr. Fyne's suggestion had caught the directors at sight. Mr. Shorter and Mr. Porter affirmed that they had not ventured to hope, etc., etc., but that if Mr. West could be induced to consider the position, no choice would appear to them so eminently—etc., etc. So said Mr. Boggs. So said Messrs. Hopkins, Fyne, and Wilmerding.

Mr. Hickok, the director who resembled James E. Winter, looked out of the window.

Mr. West, obviously restive under these tributes, was constrained to state his position more fully. For more than one reason which should be evident, he said, the mention of his name in this connection was most embarrassing and distasteful to him. While thanking the directors heartily for their evidences of good-will, he therefore begged them to desist, and proceed with the discussion of other candidates.

"In that case," said Mr. Hickok, "it appears to be the reluctant duty of the nominator to withdraw Mr. West's name."

But the brilliant young man's name, once thrown into the arena, could no more be withdrawn than the fisherman of legend could restore the genie to the bottle, or Pandora get her pretty gifts back into the box again. There was the idea, fairly out and vastly alluring. The kindly directors pressed it home. No doubt they, as well as Plonny Neal, appreciated that Blaines College did not give the young man a fair field for his talents; and certainly they knew with admiration the articles with which he sometimes adorned the columns of their paper. Of all the directors, they now pointed out, he had stood closest to Colonel Cowles, and was most familiar with the traditions and policies of the Post. Their urgings increased in force and persistence; perhaps they felt encouraged by a certain want of finality in the young man's tone; and at length West was compelled to make yet another statement.

He was, he explained, utterly disconcerted at the turn the discussion had taken, and found the situation so embarrassing that he must ask his friends, the directors, to extricate him from it at once. The editorship of the Post was an office which he, personally, had never aspired to, but it would be presumption for him to deny that he regarded it as a post which would reflect honor upon any one. He was willing to admit, in this confidential circle, moreover, that he had taken up college work chiefly with the ambition of assisting Blaines over a critical year or two in its history, and that, to put it only generally, he was not indefinitely bound to his present position. But under the present circumstances, as he said, he could not consent to any discussion of his name; and unless the directors would agree to drop him from further consideration, which he earnestly preferred, he must reluctantly suggest adjournment.

"An interregnum," said Mr. Hickok, looking out of the window, "is an unsatisfactory, not to say a dangerous thing. Would it not be better, since we are gathered for that purpose, to take decisive action to-day?"

"What is your pleasure, gentlemen?" inquired Chairman Byrd.

Mr. Hickok was easily overruled. The directors seized eagerly on Mr. West's suggestion. On motion of Mr. Hopkins, seconded by Mr. Shorter and Mr. Porter, the meeting stood adjourned to the third day following at noon.

On the second day following the Post carried the interesting announcement that Mr. West had resigned from the presidency of Blaines College, a bit of news which his friends read with sincere pleasure. The account of the occurrence gave one to understand that all Mr. West's well-known persuasiveness had been needed to force the trustees to accept his resignation. And when James E. Winter read this part of it, at his suburban breakfast, he first laughed, and then swore. The same issue of the Post carried an editorial, mentioning in rather a sketchy way the benefits Mr. West had conferred upon Blaines College, and paying a high and confident tribute to his qualities as a citizen. The young acting-editor, who never wrote what he did not think, had taken much pains with this editorial, especially the sketchy part. Of course the pestiferous Chronicle took an entirely different view of the situation. "The Chronicle has won its great fight," so it nervily said, "against classism in Blaines College." And it had the vicious taste to add: "Nothing in Mr. West's presidential life became him like the leaving of it."

On the third day the directors met again. With characteristic delicacy of feeling, West remained away from the meeting. However, Mr. Hopkins, who seemed to know what he was talking about, at once expressed his conviction that they might safely proceed to the business which had brought them together.

"Perceiving clearly that I represent a minority view," said Mr. Hickok, "I request the director who nominated Mr. Queed to withdraw his name. I think it proper that our action should be unanimous. But I will say, frankly, that if Mr. Queed's name remains before the board, I shall vote for him, since I consider him from every point of view the man for the position."

Mr. Queed's name having been duly withdrawn, the directors unanimously elected Charles Gardiner West to the editorship of the Post. By a special resolution introduced by Mr. Hopkins, they thanked Mr. Queed for his able conduct of the editorial page in the absence of the editor, and voted him an increased honorarium of eighteen hundred dollars a year.

The directors adjourned, and Mr. Hickok stalked out, looking more like James E. Winter than ever. The other directors, however, looked highly gratified at themselves. They went out heartily congratulating each other. By clever work they had secured for their paper the services of one of the ablest, most gifted, most polished and popular young men in the State. Nevertheless, though they never knew it, their action was decidedly displeasing to at least one faithful reader of the Post, to wit, Miss Charlotte Lee Weyland, of the Department of Charities. Sharlee felt strongly that Mr. Queed should have had the editorship, then and there. It might be said that she had trained him up for exactly that position. Of course, Mr. West, her very good friend, would make an editor of the first order. But, with all the flocks that roamed upon his horizon, ought he to have reached out and plucked the one ewe lamb of the poor assistant? Besides, she thought that Mr. West ought to have remained at Blaines College.

But how could she maintain this attitude of criticism when the new editor himself, bursting in upon her little parlor in a golden nimbus of optimism, radiant good humor and success, showed up the shallowness and the injustice of it?

"To have that college off my neck—Whew! I'm as happy, my friend, as a schoolboy on the first day of vacation. I haven't talked much about it to you," continued Mr. West, "for it's a bore to listen to other people's troubles—but that college had become a perfect old man of the sea! The relief is glorious! I'm bursting with energy and enthusiasm and big plans for the Post."

"And Mr. Queed?" said Sharlee. "Was he much disappointed?"

West was a little surprised at the question, but he gathered from her tone that she thought Mr. Queed had some right to be.

"Why, I think not," he answered, decisively. "Why in the world should he be? Of course it means only a delay of a year or two for him, at the most. I betray no confidence when I tell you that I do not expect to remain editor of the Post forever."

Sharlee appeared struck by this summary of the situation, which, to tell the truth, had never occurred to her. Therefore, West went on to sketch it more in detail to her.

"The last thing in the world that I would do," said he, "is to stand in that boy's light. My one wish is to push him to the front just as fast as he can stride. Why, I discovered Queed—you and I did, that is—and I think I may claim to have done something toward training him. To speak quite frankly, the situation was this: In spite of his great abilities, he is still very young and inexperienced. Give him a couple of years in which to grow and broaden and get his bearings more fully, and he will be the very best man in sight for the place. On the other hand, if he were thrust prematurely into great responsibility, he would be almost certain to make some serious error, some fatal break, which would impair his usefulness, and perhaps ruin it forever. Do you see my point? As his sponsor on the Post, it seemed to me unwise and unfair to expose him to the risks of forcing his pace. That's the whole story. I'm not the king at all. I'm only the regent during the king's minority."

Sharlee now saw how unjust she had been, to listen to the small whisper of doubt of West's entire magnanimity.

"You are much wiser and farther-sighted than I."

"Perish the thought!"

"I'm glad my little Doctor—only he isn't either little or very much of a doctor any more—has such a good friend at court."

"Nonsense. It was only what anybody who stopped to think a moment would have done."

"Not everybody who stops to think is so generous...."

This thought, too, Mr. West abolished by a word.

"But you will like the work, won't you!" continued Sharlee, still self-reproachful. "I do hope you will."

"I shall like it immensely," said West, above pretending, as some regents would have done, that he was martyring himself for his friend, the king. "Where can you find any bigger or nobler work? At Blaines College of blessed memory, the best I could hope for was to reach and influence a handful of lumpish boys. How tremendously broader is the opportunity on the Post! Think of having a following of a hundred thousand readers a day! (You allow three or four readers to a copy, you know.) Think of talking every morning to such an audience as that, preaching progress and high ideals, courage and honesty and kindness and faith—moulding their opinions and beliefs, their ambitions, their very habits of thought, as I think they ought to be moulded ..."

He talked in about this vein till eleven o'clock, and Sharlee listened with sincere admiration. Nevertheless, he left her still troubled by a faint doubt as to how Mr. Queed himself felt about what had been done for his larger good. But when she next saw Queed, only a few days later, this doubt instantly dissolved and vanished. She had never seen him less inclined to indict the world and his fortune.

Far as the eye could see, either way, the street was two parallels of packed humanity. Both sidewalks, up and down, were loaded to capacity and spilling off surplus down the side-streets. Navigation was next to impossible; as for crossing you were a madman to think of such a thing. At the sidewalks' edge policemen patrolled up and down in the street with their incessant cry of "Back there!"—pausing now and then to dislodge small boys from trees, whither they had climbed at enormous peril to themselves and innocent by-standers. Bunting, flags, streamers were everywhere; now and then a floral arch bearing words of welcome spanned the roadway; circus day in a small town was not a dot upon the atmosphere of thrilled expectancy so all-pervasive here. It was, in fact, the crowning occasion of the Confederate Reunion, and the fading remnants of Lee's armies were about to pass in annual parade and review.

Mrs. Weyland's house stood full on the line of march. It was the house she had come to as a bride; she owned it; and because it could not easily be converted over her head into negotiable funds, it had escaped the predacious clutches of Henry G. Surface. After the crash, it would doubtless have been sensible to sell it and take something cheaper; but sentiment made her cling to this house, and her daughter, in time, went to work to uphold sentiment's hands. It was not a large house, or a fine one, but it did have a very comfortable little porch. To-day this porch was beautifully decorated, like the whole town, with the colors of two countries, one living and one dead; and the decorations for the dead were three times greater than the decorations for the living. And why not? Yet, at that, Sharlee was liberal-minded and a thorough-going nationalist. On some houses, the decorations for the dead were five times greater, like Benjamin's mess; on others, ten times; on yet others, no colors at all floated but the beloved Stars and Bars.

Upon the steps of Mrs. Weyland's porch sat Mr. Queed, come by special invitation of Mrs. Weyland's daughter to witness the parade.

The porch, being so convenient for seeing things, was hospitably taxed to its limits. New people kept turning in at the gate, mostly ladies, mostly white-haired ladies wearing black, and Sharlee was incessantly springing up to greet them. However, Queed, feeling that the proceedings might be instructive to him, had had the foresight to come early, before the sidewalks solidified with spectators; and at first, and spasmodically thereafter, he had some talk with Sharlee.

"So you didn't forget?" she said, in greeting him.

He eyed her reflectively. "When I was seven years old," he began, "Tim once asked me to attend to something for him while he went out for a minute. It was to mind some bacon that he had put on to broil for supper. I became absorbed in a book I was reading, and Tim came back to find the bacon a crisp. I believe I have never forgotten anything from that day to this. You have a holiday at the Department?"

"Why, do you suppose we'd work to-day!" said Sharlee, and introduced him to her mother, who, having attentively overheard his story of Tim and the bacon, proceeded to look him over with some care.

Sharlee left them for a moment, and came back bearing a flag about the size of a man's visiting card.

"You are one of us, aren't you? I have brought you," she said, "your colors."

Queed looked and recognized the flag that was everywhere in predominance that day. "And what will it mean if I wear it?"

"Only," said Sharlee, "that you love the South."

Vaguely Queed saw in her blue-spar eyes the same kind of softness that he noticed in people's voices this afternoon, a softness which somehow reminded him of a funeral, Fifi's or Colonel Cowles's.

"Oh, very well, if you like."

Sharlee put the flag in his buttonhole under her mother's watchful gaze. Then she got cushions and straw-mats, and explained their uses in connection with steps. Next, she gave a practical demonstration of the same by seating the young man, and sitting down beside him.

"One thing I have noticed about loving the South. Everybody does it, who takes the trouble to know us. Look at the people!—millions and millions...."

"Colonel Cowles would have liked this."

"Yes—dear old man." Sharlee paused a moment, and then went on. "He was in the parade last year—on the beautifullest black horse—You never saw anything so handsome as he looked that day. It was in Savannah, and I went. I was a maid of honor, but my real duties were to keep him from marching around in the hot sun all day. And now this year ... You see, that is what makes it so sad. When these old men go tramping by, everybody is thinking: 'Hundreds of them won't be here next year, and hundreds more the next year, and soon will come a year when there won't be any parade at all."

She sprang up to welcome a new arrival, whom she greeted as either Aunt Mary or Cousin Maria, we really cannot undertake to say which.

Queed glanced over the group on the porch, to most of whom he had been introduced, superfluously, as it seemed to him. There must have been twenty or twenty-five of them; some seated, some standing at the rail, some sitting near him on the steps; but all, regardless of age and sex, wearing the Confederate colors. He noticed particularly the white-haired old ladies, and somehow their faces, also, put him in mind of Fifi's or Colonel Cowles's funeral.

Sharlee came and sat down by him again. "Mr. Queed," said she, "I don't know whether you expect sympathy about what the Post directors did, or congratulations."

"Oh, congratulations," he answered at once. "Considering that they wanted to discharge me a year ago, I should say that the testimonial they gave me represented a rather large change of front."

"Personally, I think it is splendid. But the important thing is: does it satisfy you?"

"Oh, quite." He added: "If they had gone outside for a man, I might have felt slighted. It is very different with a man like West. I am perfectly willing to wait. You may remember that I did not promise to be editor in any particular year."

"I know. And when they do elect you—you see I say when, and not if—shall you pitch it in their faces, as you said?"

"No—I have decided to keep it—for a time at any rate."

Sharlee smiled, but it was an inward smile and he never knew anything about it. "Have you gotten really interested in the work—personally interested, I mean?"

He hesitated. "I hardly like to say how much."

"The more you become interested in it—and I believe it will be progressive—the less you will mind saying so."

"It is a strange interest—utterly unlike me—"

"How do you know it isn't more like you than anything you ever did in your life?"

That struck him to silence; he gave her a quick inquiring glance, and looked away at once; and Sharlee, for the moment entirely oblivious of the noise and the throng all about her, went on.

"I called that a magnificent boast once—about your being editor of the Post. Do you remember? Isn't it time I was confessing that you have got the better of me?"

"I think it is too soon," he answered, in his quietest voice, "to say whether I have got the better of you, or you have got the better of me."

Sharlee looked off down the street. "But you certainly will be editor of the Post some day."

"As I recall it, we did not speak only of editorial writing that night."

"Oh, listen ...!"

From far away floated the strains of "Dixie," crashed out by forty bands. The crowd on the sidewalks stirred; prolonged shouts went up; and now all those who were seated on the porch arose at one motion and came forward.

Sharlee had to spring up to greet still another relative. She came back in a moment, sincerely hoping that Mr. Queed would resume the conversation which her exclamation had interrupted. But he spoke of quite a different matter, a faint cloud on his intelligent brow.

"You should hear Professor Nicolovius on these veterans of yours."

"What does he say about them? Something hateful, I'm sure."

"Among other things, that they are a lot of professional beggars who have lived for forty years on their gray uniforms, and can best serve their country by dying with all possible speed. Do you know," he mused, "if you could hear him, I believe you would be tempted to guess that he is a former Union officer—who got into trouble, perhaps, and was cashiered."

"But of course you know all about him?"

"No," said he, honest, but looking rather annoyed at having given her such an opening, "I know only what he told me."

"Sharlee," came her mother's voice from the rear, "are you sitting on the cold stone?"

"No, mother. Two mats and a cushion."

"Well, he is not a Union officer," said Sharlee to Queed, "for if he were, he would not be bitter. All the bitterness nowadays comes from the non-combatants, the camp-followers, the sutlers, and the cowards. Look, Mr. Queed! Look!"

The street had become a tumult, the shouting grew into a roar. Two squares away the head of the parade swept into view, and drew steadily nearer. Mr. Queed looked, and felt a thrill in despite of himself.

At the head of the column came the escort, with the three regimental bands, mounted and bicycle police, city officials, visiting military, sons of veterans, and the militia, including the resplendent Light Infantry Blues of Richmond, a crack drill regiment with an honorable history dating from 1789, and the handsomest uniforms ever seen. Behind the escort rode the honored commander-in-chief of the veterans, and staff, the grand marshal and staff, and a detachment of mounted veterans. The general commanding rode a dashing white horse, which he sat superbly despite his years, and received an ovation all along the line. An even greater ovation went to two festooned carriages which rolled behind the general staff: they contained four black-clad women, no longer young, who bore names that had been dear to the hearts of the Confederacy. After these came the veterans afoot, stepping like youngsters, for that was their pride, in faded equipments which contrasted sharply with the shining trappings of the militia. They marched by state divisions, each division marshaled into brigades, each brigade subdivided again into camps. At the head of each division rode the major-general and staff, and behind each staff came a carriage containing the state's sponsor and maids of honor. And everywhere there were bands, bands playing "Dixie," and the effect would have been even more glorious, if only any two of them had played the same part of it at the same time.

Everybody was standing. It is doubtful if in all the city there was anybody sitting now, save those restrained by physical disabilities. Conversation on the Weyland piazza became exceedingly disjointed. Everybody was excitedly calling everybody else's attention to things that seemed particularly important in the passing spectacle. To Queed the amount these people appeared to know about it all was amazing. All during the afternoon he heard Sharlee identifying fragments of regiments with a sureness of knowledge that he, an authority on knowledge, marveled at.

The escort passed, and the officers and staffs drew on. The fine-figured old commander-in-chief, when he came abreast, turned and looked full at the Weyland piazza, seemed to search it for a face, and swept his plumed hat to his stirrup in a profound bow. The salute was greeted on the porch with a burst of hand-clapping and a great waving of flags.

"That was for my grandmother. He was in love with her in 1850," said Sharlee to Queed, and immediately whisked away to tell something else to somebody else.

One of the first groups of veterans in the line, heading the Virginia Division, was the popular R.E. Lee Camp of Richmond. All afternoon they trod to the continual accompaniment of cheers. No exclusive "show" company ever marched in better time than these septuagenarians, and this was everywhere the subject of comment. A Grand Army man stood in the press on the sidewalk, and, struck by the gallant step of the old fellows, yelled out good-naturedly:—

"You boys been drillin' to learn to march like that, haven't you?"

Instantly a white-beard in the ranks called back: "No, sir! We never have forgot!"

Other camps were not so rhythmic in their tread. Some of the lines were very dragging and straggly; the old feet shuffled and faltered in a way which showed that their march was nearly over. Not fifty yards away from Queed, one veteran pitched out of the ranks; he was lifted up and received into the house opposite which he fell. Sadder than the men were the old battle-flags, soiled wisps that the aged hands held aloft with the most solicitous care. The flag-poles were heavy and the men's arms weaker than once they were; sometimes two or even three men acted jointly as standard-bearer.

These old flags, mere unrecognizable fragments as many of them were, were popular with the onlookers. Each as it marched by, was halled with a new roar. Of course there were many tears. There was hardly anybody in all that crowd, over fifty years old, in whom the sight of these fast dwindling ranks did not stir memories of some personal bereavement. The old ladies on the porch no longer used their handkerchiefs chiefly for waving. Queed saw one of them wave hers frantically toward a drooping little knot of passing gray-coats, and then fall back into a chair, the same handkerchief at her eyes. Sharlee, who was explaining everything that anybody wanted to know, happened to be standing near him; she followed his glance and whispered gently:—

"Her husband and two of her brothers were killed at Gettysburg. Her husband was in Pickett's Division. Those were Pickett's men that just passed—about all there are left now."

A little while afterwards, she added: "It is not so gay as one of your Grand Army Days, is it? You see ... it all comes home very close to us. Those old men that can't be with us much longer are our mothers' brothers, and sweethearts, and uncles, and fathers. They went out so young—so brave and full of hope—they poured out by hundreds of thousands. Down this very street they marched, no more than boys, and our mothers stood here where we are standing, to bid them godspeed. And now look at what is left of them, straggling by. There is nobody on this porch—but you—who did not lose somebody that was dear to them. And then there was our pride ... for we were proud. So that is why our old ladies cry to-day."

"And why your young ladies cry, too?"

"Oh, ... I am not crying."

"Don't you suppose I know when people are crying and when they aren't?—Why do you do it?"

Sharlee lowered her eyes. "Well ... it's all pretty sad, you know ... pretty sad."

She turned away, leaving him to his own devices. From his place on the top step, Queed turned and let his frank glance run over the ladies on the porch. The sadness of face that he had noticed earlier had dissolved and precipitated now: there was hardly a dry eye on that porch but his own. What were they all crying for? Miss Weyland's explanation did not seem very convincing. The war had ended a generation ago. The whole thing had been over and done with many years before she was born.

He turned again, and looked out with unseeing eyes over the thick street, with the thin strip of parade moving down the middle of it. He guessed that these ladies on the porch were not crying for definite brothers, or fathers, or sweethearts they had lost. People didn't do that after forty years; here was Fifi only dead a year, and he never saw anybody crying for her. No, they were weeping over an idea; it was sentiment, and a vague, misty, unreasonable sentiment at that. And yet he could not say that Miss Weyland appeared simply foolish with those tears in her eyes. No, the girl somehow managed to give the effect of seeing farther into things than he himself.... Her tears evidently were in the nature of a tribute: she was paying them to an idea. Doubtless there was a certain largeness about that. But obviously the paying of such a tribute could do no possible good—unless—to the payer. Was there anything in that?—in the theory....

Unusual bursts of cheering broke their way into his consciousness, and he recalled himself to see a squad of negro soldiers, all very old men, hobbling by. These were of the faithful, whom no number of proclamations could shake from allegiance to Old Marster. One of them declared himself to be Stonewall Jackson's cook. Very likely Stonewall Jackson's cooks are as numerous as once were ladies who had been kissed by LaFayette, but at any rate this old negro was the object of lively interest all along the line. He was covered with reunion badges, and carried two live chickens under his arm.

Queed went down to the bottom step, the better to hear the comments of the onlookers, for this was what interested him most. He found himself standing next to an exceptionally clean-cut young fellow of about his own age. This youth appeared a fine specimen of the sane, wholesome, successful young American business man. Yet he was behaving like a madman, yelling like Bedlam, wildly flaunting his hat—a splendid-looking Panama—now and then savagely brandishing his fists at an unseen foe. Queed heard him saying fiercely, apparently to the world at large: "They couldn't lick us now. By the Lord, they couldn't lick us now!"

Queed said to him: "You were badly outnumbered when they licked you."

Flaunting his hat passionately at the thin columns, the young man shouted into space: "Outnumbered—outarmed—outequipped—outrationed—but not outgeneraled, sir, not outsoldiered, not outmanned!"

"You seem a little excited about it. Yet you've had forty years to get used to it."

"Ah," brandished the young man at the soldiers, a glad battlenote breaking into his voice, "I'm being addressed by a Yankee, am I?"

"No," said Queed, "you are being addressed by an American."

"That's a fair reply," said the young man; and consented to take his eyes from the parade a second to glance at the author of it. "Hello! You're Doc—Mr. Queed, aren't you?"

Queed, surprised, admitted his identity.

"Ye-a-a-a!" said the young man, in a mighty voice. This time he shouted it directly at a tall old gentleman whose horse was just then dancing by. The gentleman smiled, and waved his hand at the flaunted Panama.

"A fine-looking man," said Queed.

"My father," said the young man. "God bless his heart!"

"Was your father in the war?"

"Was he in the war? My dear sir, you might say that he was the war. But you could scrape this town with a fine-tooth comb without finding anybody of his age that wasn't in the war."

The necessity for a new demonstration checked his speech for a moment.

Queed said: "Who are these veterans? What sort of people are they?"

"The finest fellows in the world," said the young man. "An occasional dead-beat among them, of course, but it's amazing how high an average of character they strike, considering that they came out of four years of war—war's demoralizing, you know!—with only their shirts to their backs, and often those were only borrowed. You'll find some mighty solid business men in the ranks out there, and then on down to the humblest occupations. Look! See that little one-legged man with the beard that everybody's cheering! That's Corporal Henkel of Petersburg, commended I don't know how many times for bravery, and they would have given him the town for a keepsake when it was all over, if he had wanted it. Well, Henkel's a cobbler—been one since '65—and let me tell you he's a blamed good one, and if you're ever in Petersburg and want any half-soling done, let me tell you—Yea-a-a! See that trim-looking one with the little mustache—saluting now? He tried to save Stonewall Jackson's life on the 2d of May, 1863,—threw himself in front of him and got badly potted. He's a D.D. now. Yea-a-a-a!"

A victoria containing two lovely young girls, sponsor and maid of honor for South Carolina, dressed just alike, with parasols and enormous hats, rolled by. The girls smiled kindly at the young man, and he went through a very proper salute.

"Watch the people!" he dashed on eagerly. "Wonderful how they love these old soldiers, isn't it?—they'd give 'em anything! And what a fine thing that is for them!—for the people, not the soldiers, I mean. I tell you we all give too much time to practical things—business—making money—taking things away from each other. It's a fine thing to have a day now and then which appeals to just the other side of us—a regular sentimental spree. Do you see what I mean? Maybe I'm talking like an ass.... But when you talk about Americans, Mr. Queed—let me tell you that there isn't a State in the country that is raising better Americans than we are raising right here in this city. We're as solid for the Union as Boston. But that isn't saying that we have forgotten all about the biggest happening in our history—the thing that threw over our civilization, wiped out our property, and turned our State into a graveyard. If we forgot that, we wouldn't be Americans, because we wouldn't be men."

He went on fragmentarily, ever and anon interrupting himself to give individual ovations to his heroes and his gods:—

"Through the North and West you may have one old soldier to a village; here we have one to a house. For you it was a foreign war, which meant only dispatches in the newspapers. For us it was a war on our own front lawns, and the way we followed it was by the hearses backing up to the door. You can hardly walk a mile in any direction out of this city without stumbling upon an old breastworks. And in the city—well, you know all the great old landmarks, all around us as we stand here now. On this porch behind us sits a lady who knew Lee well. Many's the talk she had with him after the war. My mother, a bride then, sat in the pew behind Davis that Sunday he got the message which meant that the war was over. History! Why this old town drips with it. Do you think we should forget our heroes, Mr. Queed? Up there in Massachusetts, if you have a place where John Samuel Quincy Adams once stopped for a cup of tea, you fence it off, put a brass plate on the front door, and charge a nickel to go in. Which will history say is the greater man, Sam Adams or Robert F. Lee? If these were Washington's armies going by, you would probably feel a little excited, though you have had a hundred and twenty years to get used to Yorktown and the Philadelphia Congress. Well, Washington is no more to the nation than Lee is to the South.

"But don't let anybody get concerned about our patriotism. We're better Americans, not worse, because of days like these, the reason being, as I say, that we are better men. And if your old Uncle Sammy gets into trouble some day, never fear but we'll be on hand to pull him out, with the best troops that ever stepped, and another Lee to lead them."

Somewhere during the afternoon there had returned to Queed the words in which Sharlee Weyland had pointed out to him—quite unnecessarily—that he was standing here between two civilizations. On the porch now sat Miss Weyland's grandmother, representative of the dead aristocracy. By his side stood, clearly, a representative of the rising democracy—one of those "splendid young men" who, the girl thought, would soon be beating the young men of the North at every turn. It was valuable professionally to catch the point of view of these new democrats; and now he had grasped the fact that whatever the changes in outward form, it had an unbroken sentimental continuity with the type which it was replacing.

"Did you ever hear Ben Hill's tribute to Lee?" inquired the young man presently.

Queed happened to know it very well. However, the other could not be restrained from reciting it for his own satisfaction.

"It is good—a good piece of writing and a fine tribute," said Queed. "However, I read a shorter and in some ways an even better one in Harper's Weekly the other day."

"Harper's Weekly! Good Heavens! They'll find out that William Lloyd Garrison was for us next. What'd it say?"

"It was in answer to some correspondents who called Lee a traitor. The editor wrote five lines to say that, while it would be exceedingly difficult ever to make 'traitor' a word of honorable distinction, it would be done if people kept on applying it to Lee. In that case, he said, we should have to find a new word to mean what traitor means now."

The young man thought this over until its full meaning sank into him. "I don't know how you could say anything finer of a man," he remarked presently, "than that applying a disgraceful epithet to him left him entirely untouched, but changed the whole meaning of the epithet. By George, that's pretty fine!"

"My only criticism on the character, or rather on the greatness, of Lee," said Queed, introspectively, "is that, so far as I have ever read, he never got angry. One feels that a hero should be a man of terrible passions, so strong that once or twice in his life they get away from him. Washington always seems a bigger man because of his blast at Charles Lee."

The young man seemed interested by this point of view. He said that he would ask Mrs. Beauregard about it.

Not much later he said with a sigh: "Well!—It's about over. And now I must pay for my fun—duck back to the office for a special night session."

Queed had taken a vague fancy to this youth, whose enviably pleasant manners reminded him somehow of Charles Gardiner West. "I supposed that it was only in newspaper offices that work went on without regard to holidays."

The young man laughed, and held out his hand. "I'm very industrious, if you please. I'm delighted to have met you, Mr. Queed—I've known of you for a long time. My name's Byrd—Beverley Byrd—and I wish you'd come and see me some time. Good-by. I hope I haven't bored you with all my war-talk. I lost a grandfather and three uncles in it, and I can't help being interested."

The last of the parade went by; the dense crowd broke and overran the street; and Queed stood upon the bottom step taking his leave of Miss Weyland. Much interested, he had lingered till the other guests were gone; and now there was nobody upon the porch but Miss Weyland's mother and grandmother, who sat at the further end of it, the eyes of both, did Mr. Queed but know it, upon him.

"Why don't you come to see me sometimes?" the daughter and granddaughter was saying sweetly. "I think you will have to come now, for this was a party, and a party calls for a party-call. Oh, can you make as clever a pun as that?"

"Thank you—but I never pay calls."

"Oh, but you are beginning to do a good many things that you never did before."

"Yes," he answered with curious depression. "I am."

"Well, don't look so glum about it. You mustn't think that any change in your ways of doing is necessarily for the worse!"

He refused to take up the cudgels; an uncanny thing from him. "Well! I am obliged to you for inviting me here to-day. It has been interesting and—instructive."

"And now you have got us all neatly docketed on your sociological operating table, I suppose?"

"I am inclined to think," he said slowly, "that it is you who have got me on the operating table again."

He gave her a quick glance, at once the unhappiest and the most human look that she had ever seen upon his face.

"No," said she, gently,—"if you are on the table, you have put yourself there this time."

"Well, good-by—"

"And are you coming to see me—to pay your party-call?"

"Why should I? What is the point of these conventions—these little rules—?"

"Don't you like being with me? Don't you get a great deal of pleasure from my society?"

"I have never asked myself such a question."

He was gazing at her for a third time; and a startled look sprang suddenly into his eyes. It was plain that he was asking himself such a question now. A curious change passed over his face; a kind of dawning consciousness which, it was obvious, embarrassed him to the point of torture, while he resolutely declined to flinch at it.

"Yes—I get pleasure from your society."

The admission turned him rather white, but he saved himself by instantly flinging at her: "However, I am no hedonist."

Sharlee retired to look up hedonist in the dictionary.

Later that evening, Mrs. Weyland and her daughter being together upstairs, the former said:—

"Sharlee, who is this Mr. Queed that you paid so much attention to on the porch this evening?"

"Why, don't you know, mother? He is the assistant editor of the Post, and is going to be editor just the minute Mr. West retires. For you see, mother, everybody says that he writes the most wonderful articles, although I assure you, a year ago—"

"Yes, but who is he? Where does he come from? Who are his people?"

"Oh, I see. That is what you mean. Well, he comes from New York, where he led the most interesting literary sort of life, studying all the time, except when he was doing articles for the great reviews, or helping a lady up there to write a thesaurus. You see, he was fitting himself to compose a great work—"

"Who are his people?"

"Oh, that!" said Sharlee. "Well, that question is not so easy to answer as you might think. It opens up a peculiar situation: to begin with, he is a sort of an orphan, and—"

"How do you mean, a sort of an orphan?"

"You see, that is just where the peculiar part comes in. There is the heart of the whole mystery, and yet right there is the place where I must be reticent with you, mother, for though I know all about it, it was told to me confidentially—professionally, as my aunt's agent—and therefore—"

"Do you mean that you know nothing about his people?"

"I suppose it might be stated, crudely, in that way, but—"

"And knowing nothing about who or what he was, you simply picked him up at the boarding-house, and admitted him to your friendship?"

"Picking-up is not the word that the most careful mothers employ, in reference to their daughters' attitude toward young men. Mother, don't you understand? I'm a democrat."

"It is not a thing," said Mrs. Weyland, with some asperity, "for a lady to be."

Sharlee, fixing her hair in the back before the mirror, laughed long and merrily. "Do you dare—do you dare look your own daughter in the eye and say she is no lady?"

"Do you like this young man?" Mrs. Weyland continued.

"He interests me, heaps and heaps."

Mrs. Weyland sighed. "I can only say," she observed, sinking into a chair and picking up her book, "that such goings on were never heard of in my day."