aughter. We must let Elsie pass.

Yet a fresh young shoot budding from a gnarled old trunk would afford a
piquant contrast--has done so hundreds of times. Jehiel Prince
undoubtedly _was_ gnarled and old and tough; a charming granddaughter to
cajole or wheedle him in the library, or to relax his indignant tension
over young men during their summer attendance on swing or hammock, would
have her uses. Yet a swing or a hammock would suggest, rather than the
bleak stateliness of Jehiel's urban environment, some fair, remote
domain with lawns and gardens; and Jehiel was far from possessing--or
from wanting to possess--a country-house. Elsie may be revived, if
necessary; but I can promise nothing. I rather think you have heard the
last of her.

James lived a few hundred yards from his father; his house bulked to
much the same effect. It was another symmetrical, indigenous box--in
stone, however, and not in brick. It had its mortgage. If this mortgage
was ever paid up, another came later--a mortgage which passed through
various renewals and which, as values were falling, was always renewed
for a lesser amount and was always demanding ready money to meet the
difference. In later years Raymond, with this formidable weight still
pressing upon him, received finally an offer of relief and liberation;
some prosperous upstart, with plans of his own, said he would chance the
property, mortgage and all, if paid a substantial bonus for doing so.

The premises included a stable. I mention the stable on account of
Johnny McComas. He lived in it. Downstairs, the landau and the two
horses, and another horse, and a buggy and phaeton, and sometimes a cow;
upstairs, Johnny and his father and mother. Johnny could look out
through a crumpled dimity curtain across the back yard and could see his
father freezing ice-cream on a Sunday forenoon on the back kitchen
porch; and he could also look into one of Raymond's windows on the floor
above.

Every so often he would beg:--

"Oh, father, let me do it,--please!"

Then he would lose the double prospect and get, instead, a plate of
vanilla with a tin spoon in it.

Raymond, who had no mastering passion for games, sat a good deal in his
room, sometimes at one of the side windows; occasionally at the back
one, in which case Johnny was quite welcome to look. Raymond had more
desks than one, and books everywhere on the walls between them. He had a
strong bent toward study, and was even beginning to d