the young men mused, and meeting the upturned eyes of Mrs.
Witherspoon, who had clasped her hands over his shoulder, he said:

"Mother, I hope you are not disappointed in me."

"You are just like the Craigs," she insisted. "They were dark. And
Uncle Louis was so dark that he might have been taken for an Italian,
and Uncle Harvey"--She hesitated and glanced at her husband.

"What were you going to say about your Uncle Harvey?" Henry asked.

"Nothing, only he was dark just like all the Craigs."

There is a grunt which man borrowed from the goat, or which, indeed,
the goat may have borrowed from man. And this grunt, more than could
possibly be conveyed by syllabic utterance, expresses impatience.
Witherspoon gave this goat-like grunt, and Henry knew that he had
heard of the Craigs until he was sick of their dark complexion. He
knew, also, that the great merchant had not a defensive sense of
humor, for humor, in the exercise of its kindly though effective
functions, would long ago have put these Craigs to an unoffending
death.

"I don't see why you turn aside to talk of complexion when the whole
situation is so odd," said Ellen, speaking to her father. "I am
not able to bring myself down to a realization of it yet, although
I have been trying to ever since we got that letter from that
good-for-nothing country, away off yonder. You must know that it
strikes me differently from what it does any one else. It is all
romance with me--pure romance."