hes, or beating Quakers, or
persecuting Episcopalians, not throwing tea into Boston Harbour, or
writing philosophy at Concord, but spending his days in watching the
gradual accretion of his already substantial fortune.

"A New Englander is the only jewel that appears to better advantage out
of its proper setting than in it. To illustrate. In the West, the New
Englander is thawed without being melted to such an extent as to lose
his backbone; he becomes genial without undue compromise; he carries
the torch of civilisation without a flourish. It was the chosen
spirits of New England, men and women, that went West in their great
waggons with the pots and pans hanging from the axle, and salted that
crude country with their quality.

"But the conversation has become very oracular," he continued. "What
are you going to do during the recess?"

"I 'm going home, and shall stop over in New York for a visit on my way
back. But where are you going?"

"Well, I may take a little run down to Bermuda and see the bishop and
Miss Felicity. Just think of leaving all this ice and snow, and about
the second day out beginning to shed your superfluous outer garments,
until you arrive at your destination in white duck trousers and a
Panama hat! Think of the odour of lilies, not to mention the onions!
And there I shall find Miss Felicity, looking like the goddess Flora,
wandering in those beautiful lily-fields that command a wide sweep of
the purple sea. It's enough to stir one to poetry, is n't it?"

"I wish I might go with you," Leigh remarked.

A film seemed to come over Cardington's blue eyes, just the suggestion
of a veil of secrecy.

"Yes--yes--if you hadn't made other plans, you know. But you must go
down there some winter, you must indeed. It's really a most charming
place."

"Well," Leigh said, rising and taking up his bundles, "give the bishop
and Miss Wycliffe my regards."

"I will," Cardington promised. "Perhaps they will return with me. I
'll take your excellent pipe along to smoke on the Gulf Stream and
among the lilies. Good-bye!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE PRESIDENT TAKES A HAND

One evening late in January, Leigh entered Cardington's room with his
post-prandial pipe still burning.

"What do you say," he demanded, "to going down to the opera house to
hear the President of the United States speak? Here I 've been shut up
all day, and forgot what was going on till I picked up the paper just
now. I'm