mes we
have, does he, Floyd?" said she.

"I forgot for one moment your consolations," said Mr. Floyd. "I saw your
boy's mates when I came in: one of them has a powerful face: he looks
like a youthful Cato."

"That is Jack Holt," I cried. "He _is_ like Cato: he is strong, severe,
just. Whatever he says ought to be done we know must be done, even if
the heavens fall."

"And the handsome fellow, who is he? Harry Dart? He looks equal to the
heroism of all Plutarch's heroes: he has a beautiful, consecrated face.
I hope he will live up to what it tells us now."

Glad and proud although I was to see Mr. Floyd, his coming disturbed me
a little. Hitherto I had accepted my life unquestioningly. We had been
poor ever since my father's death, and my mother's life had become
circumscribed and narrowed down to Belfield. It had seemed to me that no
other people in the world were just so happy as my mother and myself.
What need had we of a larger house, when the one stately mansion that I
was familiar with appeared to me a desert, even with all its fairy-land
splendors? Jack Holt's father was too rich a man not to allow his wife
all the good things which she coveted, and her parlors, halls and
bedrooms were irrefragable proof of the enormities which may be
committed with an utter want of taste and tens of thousands of dollars.
Both Harry and Jack hated the house, and spent every available moment
out of school in our comfortable, well-worn nooks inside and out of
doors. My mother used to play to us at twilight, and sing sweet ballads
which gave us a state of mind full of the blessed misery which youth
loves. Then what gay little waltzes used to rattle off from my mother's
fingers! She taught us all to dance, and in the winter dusk we would
waltz in turn with Georgy Lenox, the two of us who could not have her as
a partner circling with our arms about each other's less slender waists.
Then the feasts my mother used to cook for us with her own clever hands
have made the greatest banquets seem poor since: she had the gift of
performing every feminine task better than any other woman in the world.
In short, I had lived the life which undoubtedly comes to many a lad who
has no father: my mother appeared to have no thought but of me and my
happiness, and not one of my dreams of far-reaching happiness but
included her. I realized enough of the exquisite worth of her devotion
to me never to cross her wishes: an invisible yet insurmountable b