hold management or a knowledge
of English history. A bit of a race is only amusing, but what with
these automobiles, there's no pleasure in horses at all nowadays."

"They certainly _are_ dangerous."

"Dangerous! They should not be allowed on the roads at all. Any more
than--than drunken men. The comparison somehow pleases me, Lucy. Did
you observe it?"

"Yes, yes, Cousin Agatha." The girl turned to the older lady a face
very young and fair and eyes that shone. "I was laughing at it all the
time."

It was a great pleasure, so Miss Herron assured all her friends, to
feel sure that her little cousin was for a few months at least to be
brought under the influence which had shaped the lives of her New
England forebears. For the child to live in Herron House, to grow in
knowledge of her race, so splendidly patriotic, so consistently rich
and cultivated from the days when Barham was part of a colony, seemed
to the proud old lady a real necessity for Lucy. She must never forget
that she was a New England gentlewoman; she must learn the traditions,
stiffen with the pride of her race. And because these things might
grow dim or be clean forgotten, did she spend all her days in the
noisy, extravagant city or the lazy places abroad.

Miss Herron rejoiced when Lucy's father laughed, and replied to her
request by sending the child to her for a whole long summer.

"She is very dear to me," he had whispered, looking across the room to
where Lucy was chattering as she poured tea. "And very lovely,
Agatha."

"She has the Herron look," she had answered, complacently.

"You'll take ever so good care, of her?"

"I may be trusted, I think, not to abuse any member of my family."

Quiet, sunny days followed. There were hours in the glowing garden,
murmurous with bees, heavy with delicate perfume of box and verbena
and mignonette; hours in the great old house, with its family
treasures of plate and china and mahogany, where ancient Chloe and
Sylvester still served as in the days when they had followed North
that kindly Yankee major they had found helpless after the doings in
the Shenandoah Valley. There were company at dinner, less formal
gatherings on the piazza of a moonlight evening, when accredited
youngsters from the summer colony amused and sometimes scandalized
Miss Herron with their laughter and singing. And now and then Lucy
would be carried off to other houses of Barham; whence she would
return to render a supposedly exac