was the theory of life, as well as the real occupation, of the whole
family. They all looked out, for they were very frank on the subject of
its being necessary. They desired it to be understood that they were
earnest people, and also that their fortune, though quite adequate for
earnest people, required the most careful administration. Mr. Moreen, as
the parent bird, sought sustenance for the nest. Ulick invoked support
mainly at the club, where Pemberton guessed that it was usually served on
green cloth. The girls used to do up their hair and their frocks
themselves, and our young man felt appealed to to be glad, in regard to
Morgan's education, that, though it must naturally be of the best, it
didn't cost too much. After a little he _was_ glad, forgetting at times
his own needs in the interest inspired by the child's character and
culture and the pleasure of making easy terms for him.

During the first weeks of their acquaintance Morgan had been as puzzling
as a page in an unknown language--altogether different from the obvious
little Anglo-Saxons who had misrepresented childhood to Pemberton. Indeed
the whole mystic volume in which the boy had been amateurishly bound
demanded some practice in translation. To-day, after a considerable
interval, there is something phantasmagoria, like a prismatic reflexion
or a serial novel, in Pemberton's memory of the queerness of the Moreens.
If it were not for a few tangible tokens--a lock of Morgan's hair cut by
his own hand, and the half-dozen letters received from him when they were
disjoined--the whole episode and the figures peopling it would seem too
inconsequent for anything but dreamland. Their supreme quaintness was
their success--as it appeared to him for a while at the time; since he
had never seen a family so brilliantly equipped for failure. Wasn't it
success to have kept him so hatefully long? Wasn't it success to have
drawn him in that first morning at dejeuner, the Friday he came--it was
enough to _make_ one superstitious--so that he utterly committed himself,