them.
Fortunately both the twins married early, and exceptionally well.
Judith became engaged to a promising young civil engineer when
visiting a school friend in Chicago. He said she reminded him of the
New London girls. He was homesick, I think. At all events the
engagement was speedy.

But our little Desire did better than that. She witched the heart out
of young Arnold Ackroyd.

Do I need to explain the Ackroyds to any one? They are one of those
exceptional families whose moral worth is so prominent that it even
dims the lustre of their intellectual stability and their financial
rating. They are so many other, better things that no one ever {59}
thinks or speaks of them as "rich." And in this day and generation
that is real achievement.

Desire's marriage gratified me deeply, and for a wedding present I
gave her the Queen Anne silver tea-set I inherited from great-aunt
Abby. I believe in the Ackroyds, root and branch. They have, somehow
or other, accomplished what all the rest of us are striving for. They
have actually lifted an entire family connection to a plane where
ability, worth, accomplishment, are matters of course. Nobody has ever
heard of a useless, incompetent Ackroyd. Their consequent social
preeminence, which possibly meant something to Mary Greening and which
certainly counted with Desire, is merely incidental to their
substantial merit. They are prominent for the rare reason that they
deserve to be. They are the Real Thing.

{60}

Unless you happen to be in touch with them intellectually, however,
this is not saying that you will always find all of them the liveliest
of companions. The name connotes honor, ability, character; it does
not necessarily imply humor, high spirits, the joy of life.

Desire herself told me of her engagement. I don't, somehow, forget how
she looked when she came to tell me about it--shy, excited, radiant.
She fluttered into my office and stood at the end of my desk, looking
down at me. Desire was very pretty at twenty-one, with her pointed
face and big expressive eyes, her white forehead shadowed by a heap of
cloudy, curling, dark hair. Palpitating with life, she looked like
some kind of a marvelous human hummingbird. It did not surprise me
that Arnold Ackroyd found her

"All a wonder and a wild desire."

{61}

For all her excitement she spoke very softly.

"Uncle Ben, mother wants me to tell you something. I have n't told
anybody else but her."

"What is i