ality of social condition. The army was then, as I believe it is
considered now, the surest sign of higher caste in a democracy. Wesley,
by the mere right to epaulets, would be of the acknowledged gentility.
Nobody could sneer at him; no doors could be opened grudgingly when he
called. He would, in virtue of his West Point insignia, be a knighted
member of the blood royal of the republic. Some of this mysterious
unction would distill itself into the unconsecrated ichor of the rest of
the family, and Kate, as well as himself, would be part of the patrician
caste. The daughter looked upon all this good-humoredly; she shared none
of her father's morbid delusions on the subject. She rallied the cadet a
good deal on his mission. When Wesley, after the June examinations,
which he passed by the narrowest squeeze--'twas said by outside
influence--came home to display his cadet buttons and his neat gray
uniform in Acredale, Kate bantered the complacent young
warrior jocosely.

"We shall all have to live up to your shoulder-straps and brass buttons
after this, Wesley," she cried, as the proud young dandy strutted over
the arabesques of the library, where the delighted papa marched him, the
better to survey the boy's splendor. "And think of the fate that awaits
you if, in the esteem of Acredale, you should turn out less than a
Napoleon."

"Be serious, Kate, and don't tease the boy. Wesley knows what's expected
of him; he has an opportunity to show what is in his stock. Thank God,
men in the North can now come to their own without going down on their
knees to the South!"

Wesley grinned. He was no match for his sister in the humorous bouts
waged over his head against his father's prejudices and cherished social
schemes. During the vacation she put a heavy penalty of raillery upon
his swelling pride and vanity, sarcasm that tried the paternal patience
as well as his own. Wesley, however, had a large fund of the philosophy
that comes from a high estimate of one's self. He was well favored in
looks and build, though somewhat effeminate, with his small hands and
carefully shod feet. He would have been called a "dude" had the word
been known in its present significance; as it was, he was regarded as a
coxcomb by the derisive group hostile to the father's social
pretensions. He was the first of the golden youth of his set to adopt
the then reviving mode of parting the hair on the middle of the head. In
the teeth of the village derisio