“Well, I think it’s mean to have to live in this old place when people not one-fourth as good as we are are living in better ones.  The Cowperwoods—­why, even the Cowperwoods—­”

“Yes, the Cowperwoods!  What about the Cowperwoods?” demanded Butler, turning squarely to Aileen—­she was sitting beside him—–­his big, red face glowing.

“Why, even they have a better house than we have, and he’s merely an agent of yours.”

“The Cowperwoods!  The Cowperwoods!  I’ll not have any talk about the Cowperwoods.  I’m not takin’ my rules from the Cowperwoods.  Suppose they have a fine house, what of it?  My house is my house.  I want to live here.  I’ve lived here too long to be pickin’ up and movin’ away.  If you don’t like it you know what else you can do.  Move if you want to.  I’ll not move.”

It was Butler’s habit when he became involved in these family quarrels, which were as shallow as puddles, to wave his hands rather antagonistically under his wife’s or his children’s noses.

“Oh, well, I will get out one of these days,” Aileen replied.  “Thank heaven I won’t have to live here forever.”

There flashed across her mind the beautiful reception-room, library, parlor, and boudoirs of the Cowperwoods, which were now being arranged and about which Anna Cowperwood talked to her so much—­their dainty, lovely triangular grand piano in gold and painted pink and blue.  Why couldn’t they have things like that?  Her father was unquestionably a dozen times as wealthy.  But no, her father, whom she loved dearly, was of the old school.  He was just what people charged him with being, a rough Irish contractor.  He might be rich.  She flared up at the injustice of things—­why couldn’t he have been rich and refined, too?  Then they could have—­but, oh, what was the use of complaining?  They would never get anywhere with her father and mother in charge.  She would just have to wait.  Marriage was the answer—­the right marriage.  But whom was she to marry?

“You surely are not going to go on fighting about that now,” pleaded Mrs. Butler, as strong and patient as fate itself.  She knew where Aileen’s trouble lay.

“But we might have a decent house,” insisted Aileen.  “Or this one done over,” whispered Norah to her mother.

“Hush now!  In good time,” replied Mrs. Butler to Norah.  “Wait.  We’ll fix it all up some day, sure.  You run to your lessons now.  You’ve had enough.”

Norah arose and left.  Aileen subsided.  Her father was simply stubborn and impossible.  And yet he was sweet, too.  She pouted in order to compel him to apologize.

“Come now,” he said, after they had left the table, and conscious of the fact that his daughter was dissatisfied with him.  He must do something to placate her.  “Play me somethin’ on the piano, somethin’ nice.”  He preferred showy, clattery things which exhibited her skill and muscular ability and left him wondering how she did it.  That was what education was for—­to