He lit a cigar, clasped his hands behind his head, tilted his chair
precariously, and turned a blissful gaze to the little rift of sky beyond
the crowding maples.

Mr. Boland was neither tall nor short; neither broad nor slender; neither
old nor young. He wore a thick mop of brown hair, tinged with chestnut in
the sun. His forehead was broad and high and white and shapely. His eyes
were deep-set and wide apart, very innocent, very large, and very brown,
fringed with long lashes that any girl might envy. There the fine
chiseling ceased. Ensued a nose bold and broad, freckled and inclined to
puggishness; a wide and generous mouth, quirky as to the corners of it;
high cheek bones; and a square, freckled jaw--all these ill-assorted
features poised on a strong and muscular neck.

Sedgwick, himself small and dark and wiry, regarded Mr. Boland with a
scorning and deprecatory--but with private approval.

"You're getting on, you know. You're thirty--past. I warn you."

"Ha!" said Francis Charles again.

Sedgwick raised his voice appealingly.

"Hi, Thompson! Here a minute! Shouldn't Francis Charles marry?"

"Ab-so-lute-ly!" boomed a voice within.

The two young men, it should be said, sat on the broad porch of Mitchell
House. The booming voice came from the library.