"How can I tell? He seemed just about as much struck up
on me. Anyway, he paid me as much attention as he did her.
Perhaps it's more the way, now, to notice the mother than
it used to be."

Lapham ventured no conjecture, but asked, as he had
asked already, who the people were.

Mrs. Lapham repeated their name. Lapham nodded his head.
"Do you know them? What business is he in?"

"I guess he ain't in anything," said Lapham.

"They were very nice," said Mrs. Lapham impartially.

"Well, they'd ought to be," returned the Colonel.
"Never done anything else."

"They didn't seem stuck up," urged his wife.

"They'd no need to--with you. I could buy him and sell him,
twice over."

This answer satisfied Mrs. Lapham rather with the fact than
with her husband. "Well, I guess I wouldn't brag, Silas," she said.

In the winter the ladies of this family, who returned
to town very late, came to call on Mrs. Lapham.
They were again very polite. But the mother let drop,
in apology for their calling almost at nightfall,