rls which had come down to Becky. The room
had been keyed up to her portrait, and had then been toned down with
certain heavy pieces of ebony, a cabinet of black lacquer, the dark
books which lined the wall to the ceiling. The room was distinctly
nineteenth-century. If it lacked the eighteenth-century exquisiteness
of the house at Nantucket, with its reminder of austere Quaker
prejudices, it was none the less appropriate as a glowing background for
the gay old Admiral.

Becky and Cope sat on the red davenport. It was so wide that Becky was
almost lost in a corner of it. The old butler, Charles, served the
coffee. The coffee service was of repousse silver. The Admiral would
have no other. It had been given him by a body of seamen when he had
retired from active duty.

"It all proves what I brought you here to see," Archibald emphasized,
"how the gods of yesterday are going to balance the gods of to-day."

The Admiral chuckled. "There aren't any gods of to-day."

"The gods of to-day are our young men," Cope flung out, glowingly; "the
war has left them with their dreams, and they have got to find a way to
make their dreams come true. And that's where the old gods will help.
Those fine old men who dreamed, backed their dreams with deeds. Then for
a time we were so busy making money that we forgot their dreams. And
when foreigners came crowding to our shores, we didn't care whether they
were good Americans or not. All we cared was to have them work in our
mills and factories and in our kitchens, and let us alone in our pride
of ancestry and pomp of circumstance. We forgot to show them Bunker
Hill and to tell them about the old North Church and Paul Revere and the
shot heard 'round the world, and what liberty meant and democracy, and
now we've got to show them. I am going to take you around to-morrow,
Becky, and pretend you are Olga from Petrograd, and that you are seeing
America for the first time."

Archibald Cope was kindled by fires which gave color to his pale cheeks.
"Will you be--Olga from Petrograd?"

"I'd love it."

But the next morning it rained. "And you can't, of course, be Olga of
Petrograd in the rain. Bunker Hill must have the sun on it, and the
waves of the harbor must be sparkling when I tell you about the tea."

They decided, therefore, to read aloud "The Autocrat of the Breakfast
Table."

"Then if it stops raining," said Archibald, "we'll step straight out
from its pages into the Boston that I wa