Watching her, my mother was pained and puzzled; as for the Butterfly Man, his heart went below zero.  Those who loved Mary Virginia had cause for painful reflections.

Blinded by her beauty, were we judging her by the light of affection, instead of the colder light of reason?  We couldn’t approve of her behavior to Laurence, nor was it easy to refrain from disapproval of what appeared to be a tacit endurance of Inglesby’s attention.  She couldn’t plead ignorance of what was open enough to be town talk—­the man’s shameless passion for herself, a passion he seemed to take delight in flaunting.  And she made no effort to explain; she seemed deliberately to exclude her old friends from the confidence once so freely given.  She hadn’t visited the Parish House since she had broken her engagement.

And all the while the spring that hadn’t time for the little concerns of mortals went secretly about her immortal business of rejuvenation.  The blue that had been so timid and so tentative overspread the sky; more robins came, and after them bluebirds and redbirds and Peterbirds, and the impudent screaming robber jay that is so beautiful and so bold, and flute-voiced vireos, and nuthatches, and the darling busybody wren fussing about her house-building in the corners of our piazzas.  The first red flowers of the Japanese quince opened flame-like on the bare brown bushes.  When the bridal-wreath by the gate saw that, she set industriously to work upon her own wedding-gown.  The yellow jessamine was full of waxy gold buds; and long since those bold frontiersmen of the year, the Judas-trees, had flaunted it in bravest scarlet, and the slim-legged scouts of the pines showed shoulder-straps and cockades of new gay green above gallant brown leggings.

One brand new morning the Butterfly Man called me aside and placed in my hands a letter.  The American Society of Natural History invited Mr. John Flint, already a member of the Entomological Society of France, a Fellow of the Entomological Society of London, and a member of the greatest of Dutch and German Associations, to speak before it and its guests, at a most notable meeting to be held in the Society’s splendid Museum in New York City.  Not to mention two mere ex-Presidents, some of the greatest scientific names of the Americas were included in that list.  And it was before such as these that my Butterfly Man was to speak.  Behold me rocking on my toes!

The first effect of this invitation was to please me immensely, I being a puffed-up old man and carnal-minded at times; nor do I seem to improve with age.  The plaudits of the world, for anybody I admire and love, ring most sweetly in my foolish ears.  Now the honors he had gotten from abroad were fine and good in their way, but this meant that the value of his work was recognized and his position established in his own country, in his own time.  It meant a widening of his horizon, association with clever men and women, ennobling friendships to broaden his life.  A just measure of appreciation from the worthwhile sweetens toil and encourages genius.  And yet—­our eyes met, and mine had to ask an old question.