ition.

'He looks well,' said Mrs. Dallas, regarding her son.

'Why shouldn't I look well?'

'Hard work,' suggested the mother.

'Work is good for a fellow. I never got hard work enough yet. But home
is jolly, mother. That's the use of going away, I suppose,' said the
young man, drawing a chair comfortably in front of the fire; while Mrs.
Dallas rang for supper and gave orders, and then sat down to gaze at
him with those mother's eyes that are like nothing else in the world.
Searching, fond, proud, tender, devoted,--Pitt met them and smiled.

'I am all right,' he said.

'Looks so,' said the father contentedly. 'Hold your own, Pitt?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Ahead of everybody?'

'Yes, sir,' said the young man, a little more reservedly.

'I knew it!' said the elder man, rubbing his hands; 'I thought I knew
it. I made sure you would.'

'He hasn't worked too hard either,' said the mother, with a careful eye
of examination. 'He looks as he ought to look.'

A bright glance of the eye came to her. 'I tell you I never had enough
to do yet,' he said.

'And, Pitt, do you like it?'

'Like what, mother?'

'The place, and the work, and the people?--the students and the
professors?'

'That's what I should call a comprehensive question! You expect one yes
or no to cover all that?'

'Well, how do you like the people?'

'Mother, when you get a community like that of a college town, you have
something of a variety of material, don't you see? The people are all
sorts. But the faculty are very well, and some of them capital fellows.'

'Have you gone into society much?'

'No, mother. Had something else to do.'

'Time enough for that,' said the elder Dallas contentedly. 'When a man
has the money you'll have, my boy, he may pretty much command society.'

'Some sorts,' said Pitt.

'All sorts.'

'Must be a poor kind of society, I should say, that makes money the
first thing.'

'It's the best sort you can get in this world,' said the elder man,
chuckling. 'There's nothing but money that will buy bread and butter;
and they all want bread and butter. You'll find they all want bread and
butter, whatever else they want,--or have.'

'Of course they want it; but what has that to do with society?'

'You'll find out,' said the other, with an unctuous kind of complacency.

'But there's no society in this country,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'Now, Pitt,
turn your chair round,--here's the supper,--if you want to sit by the
fire, that is