nor his good temper. He still spent his evenings at home, listened to
his mother or Polly read aloud, and never missed the little supper of
beer and crackers and cheese before retiring.


II

One morning, while Webb was still one with his little family, he read,
as was usual with him on the long ride down-town, his Harlem edition of
one of the New York dailies. He finished the news, the editorials, the
special articles: nothing was there to upset the equilibrium of his
life. His attention was attracted, as he was about to close the paper,
by a long leaded "story" of a ball given the night before by some people
named Webb. Their superior social importance was made manifest by the
space and type allotted them, by the fact that their function was not
held over for the Sunday issue, and by the imposing rhetoric of the
head-lines.

Andrew read the story with a feeling of personal interest. From that
moment, unsuspected by himself, the readjustment of his mind to other
interests began--the divorce of his inner life from the simple
conditions of his youth.

Thereafter he searched the Society columns for accounts of the doings of
the Webb folk. Thence, by a natural deflection, he became generally
interested in the recreations of the great world: he acquired a habit,
much to his sister's delight, of buying the weekly chronicles of
Society, and all the Sunday issues of the important dailies.

At first the sparkle and splendor, the glamour and mystery of the world