her, because he felt that he
had been influenced by Eunice, and had somehow gone back on him. He was
vexed and he was grieved because his father had left them at the door
of the hotel without saying anything in praise of Alice, beyond the
generalities that would not carry favour with Eunice; and he was
depressed with a certain sense of Alice's father and mother, which
seemed to have imparted itself to him from the others, and to be the
Mavering opinion of them. He could no longer see Mrs. Pasmer harmless if
trivial, and good-hearted if inveterately scheming; he could not see
the dignity and refinement which he had believed in Mr. Pasmer; they had
both suffered a sort of shrinkage or collapse, from which he could not
rehabilitate them. But this would have been nothing if his sister's and
his father's eyes, through which he seemed to have been looking, had
not shown him Alice in a light in which she appeared strange and queer
almost to eccentricity. He was hurt at this effect from their want of
sympathy, his pride was touched, and he said to himself that he should
not fish for Eunice's praise; but he found himself saying, without
surprise, "I suppose you will do what you can to prejudice mother and
Min."

"Isn't that a little previous?" asked Eunice. "Have I said anything
against Miss Pasmer?"

"You haven't because you couldn't," said Dan, with foolish bitterness.

"Oh, I don't know about that. She's a human being, I suppose--at least
that was the impression I got from her parentage."

"What have you got to say against her parents?" demanded Dan savagely.

"Oh, nothing. I didn't come down to Boston to denounce the Pasmer
family."

"I suppose you didn't like their being in a flat; you'd have liked to
find them in a house on Commonwealth Avenue or Beacon Street."

"I'll own I'm a snob," said Eunice, with maddening meekness. "So's
father."

"They are connected with the best families in the city, and they are
in the best society. They do what they please, and they live where they
like. They have been so long in Europe that they don't care for those
silly distinctions. But what you say doesn't harm them. It's simply
disgraceful to you; that's all," said Dan furiously.

"I'm glad it's no worse, Dan," said his sister, with a tranquil smile.
"And if you'll stop prancing up and down the room, and take a seat, and
behave yourself in a Christian manner, I'll talk with you; and if you
don't, I won't. Do you suppose I'm goi