that he had picked up
enough resolution to die.

Raymond did not much concern himself about his father's burdens. He
assumed, I suppose, that such taxes on a man's brain and general
vitality were proper enough to middle age and to the business life of a
large city. However, he was living--just as he had principally lived
abroad--on his father's bounty. His contributions to the press--whether
a daily, or, of late, a monthly--brought in no significant sums; and a
bequest of some size from his grandfather was slow in finding its way
into his hands.

As I have said, Raymond might have taken an advantageous position in
home society. He made no effort, and I sometimes caught myself wondering
if his attitude might be that there was "nobody here." He might have
joined his father's club; but the older men principally played billiards
and talked their business affairs between. However, he did not care for
billiards, nor had their affairs any affinity with his. A younger
set--noisy and assertive out of proportion to its numbers--gave him no
consolation, still less anything like edification. They were _au
premier plan_; they possessed no background; they were without
atmosphere--without envelopment, as Johnny McComas might have amended it
(though no such lack would have been noted or resented by Johnny
himself). _Bref_, he knew what they all were without going to see. And
as for "society," it rustled flimsily, like tissue-paper; bright, in a
way, but still thin and crackling.

I wonder how he found such society as attended my wedding. I shall not
describe it; I did not describe Johnny's--probably the more important
event of the two for the purposes of this calm narrative. Yet, if you
will permit me, I shall touch on two points.

I wish, first, to say that, in my ears and to my eyes, the name "Elsie"
is just as dear and charming as it ever was. Perhaps, at one period of
my courtship, I wondered if the name would wear. No name more delightful
and suitable for a gay, arch, sweet young girl of twenty; but how, I
asked myself, will the name sit on a woman of forty, or on one of sixty?
Well, I will confess that, at forty, a certain strain of incongruity
appeared; but it marvelously vanished during the following score of
years, and the name now seems utterly right for the dainty figure and
gentle face of my lifelong companion. And though our eldest daughter is
unmarried and thirty-five, we have never regretted passing on this
beauti