Lady Baltimore

od laugh, indeed!

use I'm of the new generation, since the war, and--well, I've been to other places, too. But Aunt Eliza, and all of them, you know, can't see it. And I wouldn't have them, either! So I don't ever attempt to explain to them that the world has to go on. They'd say, 'We don't see

the roses nodding and moving. Then I sai

d Kings Port people?" He didn

" I murmured. "It was the

the North?" His to

been colonial, and has taken a hand in the game." And, as certain beloved memories of men and women rose in my mind, I continued: "If you knew so

e young Southerner

e to be a small, well-knit country for that sort of exquisite personal unitedness. There's nothing united about these States any more, except Standard Oil and discontent. We're no longer a small people living and dying for a great idea; we're a big people living and dying for money. And these ladies of yours--well, they have made me homesick for a national and a social past which I never saw, but which my old people knew. They're like legends, still living, still warm and with us. In

t the graves. "Yes, that's it; that's

nd chandeliers of their competing wives--while yours have lingered on, spared by your very adversity. And that's why I shall miss your old people when they follow mine--because they're the last

go--home to the heart. But he merely nodded at me. His nod, however, telling as it did of a quickly established accord between u

ay down here in your untainted isolation, the change, th

sn't

their grip o

We did that

it; our big men to-day think of the country and what they can make out of it. Rather different, don't you see? When I walk about in the North, I merely meet members of trusts or unions--according to the length of the individual's purse; when I walk about in Kings Port, I meet

epeated. "It's amazing to find you saying things

there are more than tw

he went on. "I didn't suppose anybody ha

a colonial background for his family, has thought, probably, very much the same

Newport, for instance?" His diction now (and I was to learn it was always in him a sign of heightening

now an

had not imagined how much. Not by any means! Kings Port has a long road

hat it's not all quite so--so advanced--as tha

re to meet there, and to whom my name was known because they had retained their good position since the days

hr

so you can divide Newport into those who leave to sell their old family pictures, those who have to buy their old family pictures, and the lucky few who need neither buy nor sell, who are neither goin

York does her best, what's better

into the papers, who dine the drunken dukes, and ma

high tariff on drun

ared. "It's the Republican par

refreshing. And I agreed with him so well. "You

the negroes and Newport together to one of our distant is

" I entreated him But he had, for the moment, ceased; and I rose to stret

n Mayrant, yet beneath the animation that our talk had filled his eyes with lay (I seemed to see or feel) that other mood all the time, the mood which had caused the girl behind the counter to say to me that he was "anxious a

tininess of Kings Port, that I should tell it to you, even if it did not bear directly upon t

he lette

he half-open gateway upon Worship Street. The postman was descending the steps of the post-office opposite. He saw me through the gate and paused. He knew me, too! My face, easily marked out amid the resident face

ss Trevise's when you're right here, sir. Northern mail eight h

unning mate of mine, soon had my full att

March Hare by way of farewell. She tried our new toboggan fire-escape on a bet. Clean from the attic, my boy. I imagine our native girls will rejoice at

e been silent after

trust?" John M

we had resumed our seats in t

at a lot you seem to have seen and

es. There was no choice. I had gone to Newport upon--u

me up in his mind. But he took me

uld easily--" he paused, casting about for some expression adequate--"could buy Kings Port and put it under a glass case in a museum--my aunts and all--and neve

thing if they cou

ent. "My aunts? U

id! They'd be more invaluable, more instructi

be pleased. "May I as

ountry club porches--they would teach these wallowing creatures, whose money has merely gilded their bristles, what American refinement once was. The manners we've lost, the decencies we've

igh-balls--and they have money enough to be drunk straight through t

gone back to my word. "

lant deeds, and one great uniting inspiration. Liberty winning her spurs. They were moulded

d old childhood gone, good new manhood not yet come, and a state of chicken-pox between while

lling him, "I hope so," he said, "I hope so.

ation. "You know your classic

ed. "Don't tel

her

--and she thinks Tennyson about the only poet worth reading

o modern poetry--or to alcoholic girls.

ve us what must be his ceaseless preoccupation; and I wondered if he had fou

like to behave herself decently finds that propriety puts h

ing me with w

nxious Newport parent does on finding h

wered, "that she scolds

her keep up with the others, you know.

alls, y

friend; anythi

ny rate, a new cause for old effects." He paused. It seemed strangely to br

in it; and he sat on his gravestone opposite, with the path between us, and the little noiseless breeze rustling the white irises, and bearing hither and thither the soft perfume of the roses. His boy face, lean, high-strung, brooding, was full of suppressed contentions. I made myself, during our silence, state his possible

rent enough. "Do you approv

another: "What reasons c

mind it?" There was actual hop

t." (As a matter of fact I do mind it; b

rtainly saw very nice pe

'll see very nice peopl

t, not my sort of people!"

But is there, after all, a

ight encourage the daughter to smoke, too. And the girl might take it up so as n

when she came to a place where doing it

he answered, "that she did

'really like it' y

d they? Are not their lips more innocent th

he association is, I think you'll h

erywhere. But not here. Have you ever noticed," he now inquired with continue

imself and not on the smoking habits of Miss Rieppe, that his aunt had heavily descended. I also reflected that if cigarettes were the only thing he deprecated in the lady of his choice, the lost illusion might be coaxed back. The tro

ersonal note. "I suppose

the wild

innocent for

n insult," I dec

could pick out. South Carolina has never lacked sporting blood, sir. But in Newport--well, sir, we gentlemen

us until the w

sir?" He w

onable ladies became so desperate in their competition for men's allegiance that they--well,

religion? I don't mean to say anything sacrilegious, but it seems to me that even if one has ceased to believe some parts of the Bible, even if one does not always obey the Ten Commandments, one is bound,

penetrating as to some of the mysteries of the soul. But he was of old Huguenot blood, and of careful and gentle upbringing

'" I cried. "It never dies. It has outla

Newport train of thought, "that to prove you were a

of swine,"

, if they only wo

etely

over a steep pl

h, for all the dash and spirit in his delicate features, was somehow the final thing one got from the boy's expression. It was as though the noble memories of his race looked out of his eyes, seeking new chances for dist

dy to--talk to, you know. My friends here are everything friends and gentlemen should

midable nuptial knot, to a specimen devotee of the cult. He shouldn't marry her if he really did not want to, and I could stop it! But how was I to begin spinning the first faint web of plan how I might stop it, unless he came right out with the whole thing? I didn't believe he was the man to do that ever, e

hem. Why, my dear sir," he stretched out his hand in emphasis, "you do not have to do anything untimely and extreme if you are in g

e?" I

eaning against

that we had said, sustained the quiet and almost grave undertone of our conference. My own quite unconscious act o

were proud to remain faithful to the family. She took hold of the plantation, she walked the rice-banks in high boots. She had an overseer, who, it was told her, would possibly take her life by poison or by violence. She nevertheless lived in that lonely spot with no protector except her pistol and some directions about antidotes. She dismissed him when she had proved he was

l elegance,"

s stories of the old times--old rides when the country was wild, old journeys with the family and servants to the Hot Springs before the steam cars were invented, old adventures, with the battle of New Orleans or a famous duel in them--the sort of stories that begin with (for yo

es, an impoverishment falls upon us

shell of people here, knows or cares anything about her any more; and soon even the nutshell will be empty." He paused, and then, as if brushing aside his churchyard mood, he translated into his changed thought another classi

the quiet tombs behind us, and gained Worship Street, I could not help looking back where slept that older Kings Port abo