literature have no conception how far from it most people are. The
immense majority of 'homes,' as the newspapers call them, have no
books in them except the Bible and a semi-religious volume or two--
things you never see out of such 'homes'--and the State business
directory. I was astonished when it came out that she knew about
Every Other Week. It must have been by accident. The sordidness of
her home life must be something unimaginable. The daughter of a
village capitalist, who's put together his money dollar by dollar,
as they do in such places, from the necessities and follies of his
neighbours, and has half the farmers of the region by the throat
through his mortgages--I don't think that she's 'one to be desired'
any more than 'the daughter of a hundred earls,' if so much."

"She doesn't seem sordid herself."

"Oh, the taint doesn't show itself at once--


'If nature put not forth her power
About the opening of the flower,
Who is it that would live an hour?'


and she is a flower, beautiful, exquisite"

"Yes, and she had a mother as well as this father of hers. Why
shouldn't she be like her mother?"

I laughed. "That is true! I wonder why we always leave the mother
out of the count when we sum up the hereditary tendencies? I