and they all looked as if they had the instrument of torture
which photographers call a head-rest under their occiputs.
Here and there an elderly lady's face was a mere blur;
and some of the younger children had twitched
themselves into wavering shadows, and might have passed
for spirit-photographs of their own little ghosts.
It was the standard family-group photograph, in which most
Americans have figured at some time or other; and Lapham
exhibited a just satisfaction in it. "I presume,"
he mused aloud, as he put it back on top of his desk,
"that we sha'n't soon get together again, all of us."

"And you say," suggested Bartley, "that you stayed right
along on the old place, when the rest cleared out West?"

"No o-o-o," said Lapham, with a long, loud drawl;
"I cleared out West too, first off. Went to Texas.
Texas was all the cry in those days. But I got enough
of the Lone Star in about three months, and I come back
with the idea that Vermont was good enough for me."

"Fatted calf business?" queried Bartley, with his pencil
poised above his note-book.

"I presume they were glad to see me," said Lapham,
with dignity. "Mother," he added gently, "died that winter,
and I stayed on with father. I buried him in the spring;
and then I came down to a little place called Lumberville,
and picked up what jobs I could get. I worked round at
the saw-mills, and I was ostler a while at the hotel--I