"By Jove!" Ellery exclaimed, moving uneasily. "When you sniff this air

it makes you want to stand on tiptoe on a hilltop and shout. And when

you look at these colors, they are too brilliant to be true."

"Even you, you old conservative slow-poking duffer!" cried Dick. "This

is the land to wake you up. It calls 'harder--harder!' every-day."

"It's a different kind of beauty from what I'm used to." Ellery sobered

down again. "I've been trying to analyze it ever since I came West. It

wouldn't appeal to the tired or the world-weary. Its charm is for the

vigorous and the confident and the hopeful--for the young."

"For us, my boy," Dick said.

"At Madeline's," as Dick called it, with that obliviousness of the older

generation shown by the younger, Norris felt as they entered, as he had

felt at Mrs. Percival's, that he was in a candid, human, refined home,

with a full appreciation of the finer sides of life. They passed through

the drawing-room and by long glass doors to the broad piazza, with every

invitation to laziness, easy chairs, cushions, magazines, all made

fragrant by a huge jar of roses and another of sweet peas. And there was

not too much. The veranda in turn gave upon a wide expanse of green that

stretched steeply down to that cool wet line where the lapping waters

met the lawn. The trees whispered softly around. Every prospect was

pleasing, and only man was vile; for there was another man, sitting in

the most comfortable of chairs and engaging Madeline all to himself, as

he contentedly sipped the cup of tea that he had taken from her hand.

This other man, whose name was Davison, was making himself agreeable

after the fashion of his kind, a fashion quite familiar to every girl

who has been so unfortunate as to get a reputation, however little

deserved, for superior brains.

"Afternoon," he said, "I didn't suppose any other fellows except myself

were brave enough, to call on Miss Elton. I hear she's so awfully

clever, you know. Taken degrees and all that sort of thing. Give you my

word it comes out in everything around her. Why, this very napkin she

gave me has a Greek border. Everything has to be classic now."

"Not everything, Mr. Davison," said Madeline indulgently. "You know I am

delighted to have you here." She turned abruptly to the new-comers as

though she had already had a surfeit of this subject. It is a pleasant

thing to have had a good education, but one does not care to spend one's

time thinking about it, any more than about how much money there is in

one's pocket.

"You had a fine ride out?" Madeline asked.

"Great!" answered Dick. "To be young, on a summer day, seated in a good

motor with a thoroughly tamed and domesticated gasoline engine, and to

be coming to see you--what more could we ask of the gods?"




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