“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Taylor.  “She certainly does not belong to the dangerous class of whom you were speaking.  I was flattering myself that neither did I, for I was agreeing with all you said as to the need of cherishing our native originality.  Yet I must confess that now that you compare me with her (the actual comparison is my own, but you instigated it), I begin to feel more doubts about myself—­that is if she is the true species, and I’m inclined to think she is.  Pray excuse this indirect method of answering your inquiry; it is in the nature of a soliloquy; it is an airing of thoughts and doubts which have been harassing me for a fortnight—­ever since I knew Mrs. Babcock.  Really, Mr. Littleton, I can tell you very little about her.  She is a new-comer on the horizon of Benham; she has been married very recently; I believe she has taught school and that she was brought up not far from here.  She is as proud as Lucifer and sometimes as beautiful; she is profoundly serious and—­and apparently very ignorant.  I fancy she is clever and capable in her way, but I admit she is an enigma to me and that I have not solved it.  I can see she does not approve of me altogether.  She regards me with suspicion, and yet she threw the casting vote in favor of my proposal to open the competition for the church to architects from other places.  I am trying to like her, for I wish to believe in everything genuinely American if I can.  There, I have told you all I know, and to a man she may seem altogether attractive and inspiring.”

“Thank you.  I had no conception that I was broaching such a complex subject.  She sounds interesting, and my curiosity is whetted.  You have not mentioned the husband.”

“To be sure.  A burly, easy-going manufacturer of varnish, without much education, I should judge.  He is manifestly her inferior in half a dozen ways, but I understand that he is making money, and he looks kind.”

Wilbur Littleton’s life since he had come to man’s estate had been a struggle, and he was only just beginning to make headway.  He had never had time to commiserate himself, for necessity on the one hand and youthful ambition on the other had kept his energies tense and his thoughts sane and hopeful.  He and his sister Pauline, a year his senior, had been left orphans while both were students by the death of their father on the battlefield.  To persevere in their respective tastes and work out their educations had been a labor of love, but an undertaking which demanded rigorous self-denial on the part of each.  Wilbur had determined to become an architect.  Pauline, early interested in the dogma that woman must no longer be barred from intellectual companionship with man, had sought to cultivate herself intelligently without sacrificing her brother’s domestic comfort.  She had succeeded.  Their home in New York, despite its small dimensions and frugal hospitality, was already a favorite resort of a little group of professional