egory responded. "John is the youngest of three children."

"I hadn't heard of the brothers before."

"They seldom come here. They saw fit to leave their home and their
delicate mother."

"Oh!"

"But John," said Mrs. Gregory, "met his responsibility like a Mayrant."

"Whatever temptations he has yielded to," said Mrs. Weguelin, "his
filial piety has stood proof."

"He refused," added Mrs. Gregory, "when George (and I have never
understood how George could be so forgetful of their mother) wrote
twice, offering him a lucrative and rising position in the railroad
company at Roanoke."

"That was hard!" I exclaimed.

She totally misapplied my sympathy. "Oh, Anna Mayrant," she corrected
herself, "John's mother, Mrs. Hector Mayrant, had harder things than
forgetful sons to bear! I've not laid eyes on those boys since the
funeral."

"Nearly two years," murmured Mrs. Weguelin. And then, to me, with
something that was almost like a strange severity beneath her gentle
tone: "Therefore we are proud of John, because the better traits in his
nature remind us of his forefathers, whom we knew."

"In Kings Port," said Mrs. Gregory, "we prize those who ring true to the
blood."

By way of response to this sentiment, I quoted some French to her. "Bon
chien chasse de race."

It pleased Mrs. Weguelin. Her guarded attitude toward me relented. "John
mentioned your cultivation to us," she said. "In these tumble-down
days it is rare to meet with one who still lives, mentally, on the
gentlefolks' plane--the piano nobile of intelligence!"

I realized how high a compliment she was paying me, and I repaid it with
a joke. "Take care. Those who don't live there would call it the piano
snobile."

"Ah!" cried the delighted lady, "they'd never have the wit!"

"Did you ever hear," I continued, "the Bostonian's remark--'The mission
of America is to vulgarize the world'?"

"I never expected to agree so totally with a Bostonian!" declared Mrs.
Gregory.

"Nothing so hopeful," I pursued, "has ever been said of us. For
refinement and thoroughness and tradition delay progress, and we are
sweeping them out of the road as fast as we can."

"Come away, Julia," said Mrs. Gregory. "The young gentleman is getting
flippant again, and we leave him."

The ladies, after gracious expressions concerning the pleasure of their
stroll, descended the steps at the north end of High Walk, where the
parapet stops, and turned inland from the water through