"Well," said the elder lightly, as if Dan's not caring to be in Boston
had no particular significance for him, "I don't know that I care to
have you settle down to it immediately. I rather think I'd like to have
you look about first a little. Go to New York, go to Philadelphia, and
see their processes there. We can't afford to get old-fashioned in our
ways. I've always been more interested by the aesthetic side of the
business, but you ought to have a taste for the mechanism, from your
grandfather; your mother has it."

"Oh yes, sir. I think all that's very interesting," said Dan.

"Well, go to France, and see how those fellows do it. Go to London, and
look up William Morris."

"Yes, that would be very nice," admitted the young fellow, beginning to
catch on. "But I didn't suppose--I didn't expect to begin life with a
picnic." He entered upon his sentence with a jocular buoyancy, but at
the last word, which he fatally drifted upon, his voice fell. He said
to himself that he was greatly changed; that, he should never be gay and
bright again; there would always be this undercurrent of sadness; he had
noticed the undercurrent yesterday when he was laughing and joking with
those girls at Portland.

"Oh, I don't want you to buckle down at once," said his father, smiling.
"If you'd decided upon the law, I should have felt that you'd better
not lose time. But as you're going into the business, I don't mind your
taking a year off. It won't be lost time if you keep your eyes open.
I think you'd better go down into Italy and Spain. Look up the old
tapestries and stamped leathers. You may get some ideas. How would you
like it?"

"First-rate. I should like it," said Dan, rising on the waft of his
father's suggestion, but gloomily lapsing again. Still, it was pleasing
to picture himself going about through Europe with a broken heart, and
he did not deny himself the consolation of the vision.

"Well, there's nobody to dislike it," said his father cheerily. He was
sure now that Dan had been jilted; otherwise he would have put forth
some objection to a scheme which must interrupt his lovemaking. "There's
no reason why, with our resources, we shouldn't take the lead in this
business."

He went on to speak more fully of his plans, and Dan listened with
a nether reference of it all to Alice, but still with a surface
intelligence on which nothing was lost.

"Are you going home with me to-morrow?" asked his father as they rose
from