He talked a while of my father, to whom, so he said, he had looked up
ever since he had been admitted to the bar.

"It would be a pleasure to me, Hugh, as well as a matter of pride," he
said cordially, but with dignity, "to have Matthew Paret's son in my
office. I suppose you will be wishing to take your mother somewhere this
summer, but if you care to come here in the autumn, you will be welcome.
You will begin, of course, as other young men begin,--as I began. But
I am a believer in blood, and I'll be glad to have you. Mr. Fowndes and
Mr. Ripon feel the same way." He escorted me to the door himself.

Everywhere I went during that brief visit home I was struck by change,
by the crumbling and decay of institutions that once had held me in
thrall, by the superimposition of a new order that as yet had assumed
no definite character. Some of the old landmarks had disappeared; there
were new and aggressive office buildings, new and aggressive residences,
new and aggressive citizens who lived in them, and of whom my mother
spoke with gentle deprecation. Even Claremore, that paradise of my
childhood, had grown shrivelled and shabby, even tawdry, I thought, when
we went out there one Sunday afternoon; all that once represented
the magic word "country" had vanished. The old flat piano, made in
Philadelphia ages ago, the horsehair chairs and sofa had been replaced
by a nondescript furniture of the sort displayed behind plate-glass
windows of the city's stores: rocking-chairs on stands, upholstered in
clashing colours, their coiled springs only half hidden by tassels, and
"ornamental" electric fixtures, instead of the polished coal-oil lamps.
Cousin Jenny had grown white, Willie was a staid bachelor, Helen an old
maid, while Mary had married a tall, anaemic young man with glasses,
Walter Kinley, whom Cousin Robert had taken into the store. As I
contemplated the Brecks odd questions suggested themselves: did honesty
and warm-heartedness necessarily accompany a lack of artistic taste?
and was virtue its own reward, after all? They drew my mother into the
house, took off her wraps, set her down in the most comfortable rocker,
and insisted on making her a cup of tea.

I was touched. I loved them still, and yet I was conscious of
reservations concerning them. They, too, seemed a little on the
defensive with me, and once in a while Mary was caustic in her remarks.

"I guess nothing but New York will be good enough for Hugh now. He'l