The Preliminaries, and Other Stories

Dr. Arnold Ackroyd,--the young Dr. Arnold, you understan

e people of an heredity and a training like my own,--Americans of the old stock, with a normal Christian upbringing, who presumably inherit from their forebears a reasonable susceptibility to hi

goodness an

y birth h

, Greenings, Raynies, Fordhams, and so on (I name them out of many, because they are all kin to me) ki

what I know of Desire's fling. If it seems to be a story with an undue amount of moral, I mus

y before you, I shall have to prose fo

d its revolts. The Withacres all have talent--mostly ineffectual--and keen aesthetic sensibilities. All of them can talk like angels from Heaven. By no stretch of the imagination can they be called thrifty. We considered it a very poor match f

ould be both gifted and sane. But her children proved to be twin girls, Judith and Desire. Queer little codgers I thought them, big-eyed, curly-headed, subdued when on exhibition. Lucretia told long stories

ers & Co.). The Greenings were childless, and Desire spent much of her early life and nearly all her girlhood under Mary Greening's care and chaperonage. I confess to fondness for a bit of repartee with Desire now and then, myself. Perhaps I had my share in spoiling her. I take

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ately both the twins married early, and exceptionally well. Judith became engaged to a promising young civil engineer when visiting a scho

r than that. She witched the he

t that it even dims the lustre of their intellectual stability and their financial rating. They are so many other, better

rest of us are striving for. They have actually lifted an entire family connection to a plane where ability, worth, accomplishment, are matters of course. Nobody has ever heard of a useless, incompetent Ackroyd. Their consequent social p

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hat you will always find all of them the liveliest of companions. The name connotes hono

nd stood at the end of my desk, looking down at me. Desire was very pretty at twenty-one, with her pointed face and big expressive eyes, her white forehead shadowed by a

er and a wi

6

itement she spo

o tell you something. I have

s it, D

-I've promised to m

said inadequatel

odded wi

bit alike," she said. "But he is splendid! I'm sure I

ry such a man," I observed, arising slowly to the occa

why I love him. Uncle Ben, he's really wonderful when you find out what he's thinking behind those quiet eyes. And then--do you know he's one of the few really meritorious persons I ever made like

e Arnold Ackroyd helped that vibrant temperament to feel itself resting on {63} solid ground that he became so easily paramount in Desire's life at this time. However it may have been

terwards, and I remember as significant that Desire enjoyed the Musée de Cluny more than the lectures they heard at the Sorbonne. On their return they lived in dignity and comfort. They had a couple of pretty, unusual-looking chi

hem. I dined with them frequently, but now see that I knew absolutely nothing about them. I took it f

d presently. I had a simple-minded notion that we were above it. Which brings me back to my premise. A