Hillsboro People

uiet of his private life, he had always cast about the obscure little college the shimmering aura of greatness. There had been no fondness possible for th

They say he was offered seven thousand at the University of California." In the absence of any known motive for this steadfastness, the village legend-making instinct

r ones, who had known only the severely ascetic life and cold personality of the celebrated scholar, found it difficult to connect him with such a father. In their talk they brought to mind the man himself, his quiet shabby clothes, his big stooping frame, his sad black eyes absent almost to vacancy as though always fixed on high and distant thoughts; and those who had lived

d knowledge of the picture, there could be no doubt about the value of the canvas. As soon as it was put on exhibition in London, from every art-critic in the three nations who claimed Fallères for their own there rose a wail that this masterpiece was to be buried in an unknown college in an obscure village in barbarous America. It was confidently stated that it would be saved from such an unfitting resting-place by strong action on the part of an International Committee of Artists; but Middletown, though startled by its own good fortune, clung with Yankee tenacity to its rights. Rap

than a name on volumes one never read came because the portrait was by Fallères, and those who had no interest in the world of art came to honor the moralist whose noble clear-thinking had simplified the intimate problems of modern life

spoke afterward were the presidents of three great universities. The professor's family was represented but scantily. He had had one brother, who had disappeared many years ago under a black cloud of ill report, and one sister who had married and gone West to live. Her two sons, middle-a

relieved that the unveiling had gone off so smoothly, and cheerful at the prospect of food. The undergraduates began lustily to shout their college song, which was caught up by the holiday mood of the older

old woman with a crutch. "I'm his aunt, that lived with him,"

e was stopped by a cry from the newcomer. She was a great deal paler than when she came in. She was

the direction of her sh

o the life!" he

She seemed not to be abl

t, ma'am, I will say that there's a something about the expression of the eyes ... and mouth, maybe ... that ai

mid old face drawn like a mask of tr

him suddenly: "Why, sure, I ought to ha' known without thinkin', seeing the other picture as often as e

inst the wall, her crutc

uestioned

s own father, to be sur