rigid look of his shoulders,
as though his muscles were drawn and tense, made me say suddenly:

"If George has changed his hobby from horse-racing to flowers, I'll
begin to expect the General to start collecting insects."

At this George wheeled squarely upon me, and in his dark, flushed face
there was the set look of a man that has taken a high jump.

"It's a bad plan to pin all your pleasure on one thing, Ben," he said.
"If you put all your eggs in one basket you're more than likely to stub
your toe."

"Well, a good deal depends upon how wisely you may have chosen your
pursuit," commented the doctor, pushing his spectacles away from his
eyes to his hair, which was still thick and long; "I don't believe that
a man can make a mistake in selecting either flowers or insects for his
life's interest. The choice between the two is merely a question of
temperament, I suppose, and though I myself confess to a leaning toward
plants, I seriously considered once devoting my declining years to the
study of the habits of beetles. Your suggestion as to George,
however,--old George, I am alluding to,--is a capital one, and I shall
call his attention to it the next time I see him. He couldn't do better,
I am persuaded, than bend his remaining energies in the direction of
insects."

He paused to drink his tea, nodding gently over the rim of his cup to
Bonny Marshall and Bessy Dandridge, who came through one of the long
windows out upon the porch.

"So you've really stopped for a minute," remarked Bonny merrily,
swinging her floating silk train as if it were the skirt of a riding
habit, "and even Ben has fallen out of the race long enough to get a
glimpse of his wife. Have stocks tripped him up again, poor fellow? Do
you know, Sally, it's perfectly scandalous the way you are never seen in
public together. At the reception at the Governor's the other night, one
of those strange men from New York asked me if George were your husband.
Now, that's what I call positively improper--I really felt the
atmosphere of the divorce court around me when he said it--and my
grandmama assures me that if such a thing had happened to _your_
grandmama, Caroline Matilda Fairfax, she would never have held up her
head again. 'But neither morals nor manners are what they were when
Caroline Matilda and I were young,' she added regretfully, 'and it is
due, I suppose, to the war and to the intrusion into society of all
these new people that no one ever hea