bring down his work where he could be glanced at occasionally
even if he were not to be spoken to. The colonel had thought he wanted
nothing but to efface himself for his son, and yet the yearning of life
within him made him desire to live a little longer even by sapping that
young energy. Only Lydia knew what Jeff was doing, and she gloried in
it. He was writing a book, mysterious work to her who could only compass
notes of social import, and even then had some ado to spell. But she
read his progress by the light in his eyes, his free bearing and his
broken silence. For now Jeff talked. He talked a great deal. He chaffed
his father and even Anne, and left Lydia out, to her own pain. Why
should he have kissed her that long ago day if he didn't love her, and
why shouldn't he have kept on loving her? Lydia was asking herself the
oldest question in the woman's book of life, and nobody had told her
that nature only had the answer. "If you didn't mean it why did you do
it?" This was the question Lydia heard no answer to.

Jeff was perpetually dwelling upon Addington, torn between the factions
of the new and old. He asked Lydia seriously what she should recommend
doing, to make good citizens out of bamboozled aliens. Lydia had but one
answer. She should, she said, teach them to dance. Then you could get
acquainted with them. You couldn't get acquainted if you set them down
to language lessons or religious teaching, or tried to make them read
the Constitution. If people had some fun together, Lydia thought, they
pretty soon got to understand one another because they were doing a
thing they liked, and one couldn't do it so well alone. That was her
recipe. Jeff didn't take much stock in it. He was not wise enough to
remember how eloquent are the mouths of babes. He went to Miss Amabel as
being an expert in sympathy, and found her shy of him. She was on the
veranda, shelling peas, and in her checked muslin with father's portrait
braided round with mother's hair pinning together her embroidered
collar. To Jeff, clad in his blue working-clothes, she looked like
motherhood and sainthood blended. He sat himself down on the lower step,
clasped his knees and watched her, following the movements of her plump
hands.

"We can't get too homesick for old Addington while we have you to look
at," said he.

She stopped working for one pod's space and looked at him.

"Are you homesick for old Addington?" she asked. "Alston Choate says
that.