r of Broad Street
was so far away it reached them but as the hum of hornets outside
their window-pane. To the explorer of Tibet this life was narrow. To
the gay dinner-parties of upper Fifth Avenue it would have seemed
dull. To the wrecker of railroads on Wall Street it was indubitably
petty. To the merchant it was unprofitable, and yet they were quite
content with it, and looked out upon the bustling throngs of fashion
and the hustling world of business with equal word of good-natured
contempt.

"We can't all be biologists," Serviss was accustomed to say, "and I
suppose somebody must continue to steal and murder."

[Illustration: "VIOLA, TOO, CAME BACK TO BEWITCH HIM FROM HIS
READING"]

They came of good stock, these Servisses, and knew it and felt it.
Breeding was indicated in their well-set heads, in their shapely
hands, and especially in their handsome noses. "We are inclined to be
stubby, that's true, but we have the noses of aristocrats--they go
back to the Aryans of the Danube," said Mrs. Rice to a friend. "Morton
cannot consider a girl of questionable pedigree, no matter how rich or
charming she may be. We believe in stock--not in family, but _strain_;
a family is an accident, a strain is a formation. The Mortons and the
Servisses are _strains_. Their union in my brother will yet make
itself felt." Her confidence in his powers was absolute. "He is one of
the greatest young men of his day. Time will show," she added, as if
to clinch her argument.

The circle of their acquaintance included, first of all--and of
course--the scientific group, then in successive widening waves the
general literary and educational fraternities, the artistic and
musical sets, and finally they kept in touch with the old New York
families, their own school-mates and friends and those related. All
the details and duties of the social side of his life Morton turned
over to Kate, and such was her tact, and her skill and charm as
hostess, that her rooms of a Tuesday afternoon were filled with a
company of men and women as cheerful and as informal as they were
clever and distinguished. Among these groups Serviss moved as detached
of all responsibility as any of his guests, finding in this contact
with bright minds one of the greatest pleasures of his life.

These various circles moved afar from isms. They prided themselves on
their balance, their commonsense, their fund of comparative ideas.
True, some of the women had embraced C