anything on our house. And society--there's a great deal more society
than I ever had."

Mr. King might have been astonished at this outpouring if he had not
observed that it is precisely in hotels and to entire strangers that some
people are apt to talk with less reserve than to intimate friends.

"I've no doubt," he said, "you have a lovely home in Cyrusville."

"Well, I guess it's got all the improvements. Pa, Mr. Benson, said that
he didn't know of anything that had been left out, and we had a man up
from Cincinnati, who did all the furnishing before Irene came home."

"Perhaps your daughter would have preferred to furnish it herself?"

"Mebbe so. She said it was splendid, but it looked like somebody else's
house. She says the queerest things sometimes. I told Mr. Benson that I
thought it would be a good thing to go away from home a little while and
travel round. I've never been away much except in New York, where Mr.
Benson has business a good deal. We've been in Washington this winter."

"Are you going farther south?"

"Yes; we calculate to go down to the New Orleans Centennial. Pa wants to
see the Exposition, and Irene wants to see what the South looks like, and
so do I. I suppose it's perfectly safe now, so long after the war?"

"Oh, I should say so."

"That's what Mr. Benson says. He says it's all nonsense the talk about