But fortunately for us and himself he was a Mayne; and
the Maynes have been from the dawn of things Carolinian "a good
family."

I don't think I have ever seen two people so mutually delight in each
other's powers as did John Flint and Laurence Mayne. The Butterfly Man
was immensely proud of Laurence's handsome person and his grace of
speech and manner; he had even a more profound respect for his more
solid attainments, for his own struggle upward had deepened his regard
for higher education. As for Laurence, he thought his friend
marvelous; what he had overcome and become made him in the younger
man's eyes an incarnate proof of the power of will and of patience.
The originality and breadth of his views fired the boy's imagination
and broadened his personality. The two complemented each other.

The Butterfly Man's workroom had a fascination for others than
Laurence. It was a sort of Open Question Club. Here Westmoreland came
to air his views with a free tongue and to ride his hobbies with a
gallant zest; here the major, tugging at his goatee, his glasses far
down on his nose, narrated in spicy chapters the Secret Social History
of Appleboro. Here the judge--for he, too, had fallen into the habit
of strolling over of an evening--sunk in the old Morris chair, his
cigar gone cold in his fingers, reviewed great cases. And sometimes
Eustis stopped by, spoke in his modest fashion of his experiments, and
left us all the better for his quiet strength. And Flint, with his
eyes alive and watchful behind his glasses, listened with that air
which made one like to tell him things. Laurence declared that he got
his post-graduate course in John Flint's workroom, and that the
Butterfly Man wasn't the least of his teachers.

I should dearly like to say that the Awakening of Appleboro began in
that workroom; and in a way it did. But it really had its inception in
a bird's nest John Flint had discovered and watched with great
interest and pleasure. The tiny mother had learned to accept his
approach, without fear; he said she knew him personally. She allowed
him to approach close enough to touch her; she even took food out of
his fingers. He had worked toward that friendliness with great skill
and patience, and his success gave him infinite pleasure. He had a
great tenderness for the little brown lady, and he looked forward to
her babies with an almost grandfatherly eagerness. The nest was over
in a corner of our garden, in a thick eve