his sole and only reason for sparing him from his own immediate service
was his own poverty and the fact that while under St. George's care the
boy could learn how "to wait on quality."

As to the house itself--the "Temple Mansion," as it was called--that was
as much a part of Kennedy Square as the giant magnolias gracing the
park, or the Noah's Ark church, with its quaint belfry and cracked bell,
which faced its shady walks. Nobody, of course, remembered how long it
had been built--that is, nobody then alive--I mean the very date. Such
authorities as Major Clayton were positive that the bricks had been
brought from Holland; while Richard Horn, the rising young scientist,
was sure that all the iron and brass work outside were the product of
Sheffield; but in what year they had all been put together had always
been a disputed question.

That, however, which was certain and beyond doubt, was that St. George's
father, old General Dorsey Temple, had purchased the property near the
close of the preceding century; that he had, with his characteristic
vehemence, pushed up the roof, thrust in two dormer windows, and smashed
out the rear wall, thus enlarging the dining-room and giving increased
space for a glass-covered porch ending in a broad flight of wooden steps
descending to a rose-garden surrounded by a high brick wall; that thus
encouraged he had widened the fireplaces, wainscoted the hall, built a
new mahogany spider-web staircase leading to his library on the second
floor, and had otherwise disported himself after the manner of a man
who, having suddenly fallen heir to a big pot of money, had ever after
continued oblivious to the fact that the more holes he punched in its
bottom the less water would spill over its top. The alterations
complete, balls, routs, and dinners followed to such distinguished
people as Count Rochambeau, the Marquis de Castellux, Marquis de