continue to cherish the gift though _mutatus ab
illo_. If you don't mind, I 'll initiate it now, without waiting
for Christmas day." He suited the action to the words and leaned
back in his chair, puffing. "A new pipe is like--a new pair of
shoes--necessary--inevitable--but it must be broken in. I see promise
already of sweetness--great sweetness--in this briar."

"Mrs. Parr picked me up and took me home for a cup of tea," Leigh said.
"And there I met Mr. Parr."

"Well, and how did you enjoy our excellent friends, the Parrs?"
Cardington queried, leaning back in his chair with an expectant twinkle
in his eyes.

"I felt that I was visiting a storage warehouse filled with old
furniture, in the midst of which stood Parr like a wax figure escaped
from the Eden Musee."

"I can well understand that," Cardington commented, with a chuckle.
"And you learned something, doubtless, about the old newel-post that
was taken from the Putney mansion, which I hope you admired adequately,
about the old clock, the tables, and the chairs. You heard the
respectable names also of the respectable Parrs' ancestors, and Mr.
Parr asked you how you liked Warwick, after which he told you how he
liked it himself."

"Your astral body must have accompanied me," Leigh suggested.

"I could report the conversation verbatim," Cardington declared. "She
told you, among other things, that she was a genuine Bradford on her
father's side, and uttered bulls of excommunication against pretenders
to the honour. It would n't do, you know, to admit that the Bradford
progeny is as numerous as the stars for multitude, and as the sands
upon the seashore. It is advisable to restrict the genuine Bradfords
to those of wealth and position. Now, this genealogical mania is a
kind of midsummer madness that lasts in Warwick the year through, a
lineal descendant, so to speak, of the witchcraft delusion; but it
offers a certain kind of mental pemmican to impoverished minds. Those
much vaunted ancestors were very worthy people, but, bless you! there
was n't a social swell in the whole lot."

"Out West one never hears of such things," said Leigh.

"Out West," Cardington returned, "they are still grappling with the
realities of life. Ancestor worship has not yet set in as a canker in
the fruit; that will come with the dead ripeness. Here you see the New
Englander as he is to-day, not as he was in a glorified past; not
landing at Plymouth Rock, not hanging witc