"No, I assure you," Mrs. Pasmer heard her protest, "Mr. Saintsbury has,
been very much interested in him. I hope he has not put any troublesome
ideas into his head. Of course he's very much interested in literature,
from his point of view, and he's glad to find any of the young men
interested in it, and that's apt to make him overdo matters a little."

"Dan wished me to talk with him, and I shall certainly be glad to do so,"
said the father, but in a tone which conveyed to Mrs. Pasmer the
impression that though he was always open to conviction, his mind was
made up on this point, whatever it was.




VI.

The party went to half a dozen spreads, some of which were on a scale of
public grandeur approaching that of the Gymnasium, and others of a
subdued elegance befitting the more private hospitalities in the
students' rooms. Mrs. Pasmer was very much interested in these rooms,
whose luxurious appointments testified to the advance of riches and of
the taste to apply them since she used to visit students' rooms in
far-off Class Days. The deep window nooks and easy-chairs upholstered in
the leather that seems sacred alike to the seats and the shelves of
libraries; the aesthetic bookcases, low and topped with bric-a-brac; the
etchings and prints on the walls, which the elder Mavering went up to
look at with a mystifying air of understanding such things; the foils
crossed over the chimney, and the mantel with its pipes, and its
photographs of theatrical celebrities tilted about over it--spoke of
conditions mostly foreign to Mrs. Pasmer's memories of Harvard. The