“I am Mrs. Carey from the Hamilton house,” she said to Mrs. Bangs.  “Will you ask Mr. Lord if he will see me for a moment?”

Mrs. Bangs was stupefied at the request, for, in her time, scarcely a single caller from the village had crossed the threshold, although there had been occasional visitors from Portland or Boston.

Mrs. Carey waited a few moments, silently regarding the unequalled bareness, ugliness, and cheerlessness of the room.  “Olive has a sense of beauty,” she thought, “and Olive is sixteen; it is Olive who ought to make this place different from what it is, and she can, unless her father is the stumbling-block in the way.”

At this moment the possible stumbling-block, Henry Lord, Ph.D., came in and greeted her civilly.  His manner was never genial, for there was neither love in his heart nor warm blood in his veins; but he was courteous, for he was an educated fossil, of good birth and up-bringing.  He had been dissecting specimens in his workroom, and he looked capable of dismembering Mother Carey; but bless your heart, she had weapons in her unseen armory that were capable of bringing confusion to his paltry apparatus!—­among others a delicate, slender little sword that pierced deep on occasion.

Henry Lord was of medium height; spare, clean-shaven, thin-lipped, with scanty auburn hair, high forehead, and small keen eyes, especially adapted to the microscope, though ill fitted to use in friendly conversation.

“We are neighbors, Professor Lord, though we have never met,” said Mrs. Carey, rising and giving him her hand.

“My children know you better than I,” he answered, “and I feel it very kind in you to allow them to call on you so frequently.”  They had lived at the Yellow House for four months save at meal times, but as their father was unaware of the number and extent of their visits Mrs. Carey thought it useless to speak of them, so she merely said: 

“It is a great pleasure to have them with us.  My children have left many friends behind them in Massachusetts and elsewhere, and might have been lonely in Beulah; besides, I often think the larger the group (within certain limits), the better chance children have of learning how to live.”

“I should certainly not have permitted Olive and Cyril to attend the local academy but for your family,” said Professor Lord.  “These country schools never have any atmosphere of true scholarliness, and the speech and manners of both teachers and pupils are execrable.”

“I dare say that is often the case.  If the academies could furnish such teachers as existed fifty years ago; and alas! if we parents could furnish such vigorous, determined, ambitious, self-denying pupils as used to be sent out from country homes, we should have less to complain of.  Of course we are peculiarly fortunate here in Beulah.”

Mr. Lord looked faintly amused and infinitely superior.  “I am afraid, my dear lady,” he remarked, “that you have not had long enough experience to comprehend the slenderness of Mr. Philpot’s mental equipment.”