recall.

Mrs. Porter's mind worked backward and forward. She had one eye on the
past, the other on the future. If she was strong on heredity, she was
stronger on the future of the race. Most of her published works dealt
with this subject. A careful perusal of them would have enabled the
rising generation to select its ideal wife or husband with perfect
ease, and, in the event of Heaven blessing the union, her little
volume, entitled "The Hygienic Care of the Baby," which was all about
germs and how to avoid them, would have insured the continuance of the
direct succession.

Unfortunately, the rising generation did not seem disposed to a careful
perusal of anything except the baseball scores and the beauty hints in
the Sunday papers, and Mrs. Porter's public was small. In fact, her
only real disciple, as she sometimes told herself in her rare moods of
discouragement, was her niece, Ruth Bannister, daughter of John
Bannister, the millionaire. It was not so long ago, she reflected with
pride, that she had induced Ruth to refuse to marry Basil Milbank--a
considerable feat, he being a young man of remarkable personal
attractions and a great match in every way. Mrs. Porter's objection to
him was that his father had died believing to the last that he was a
teapot.

There is nothing evil or degrading in believing oneself a teapot, but
it argues a certain inaccuracy of the thought processes; and Mrs.
Porter had used all her influence with Ruth to make her reject Basil.
It was her success that first showed her how great that influence was.
She had come now to look on Ruth's destiny as something for which she
was personally responsible--a fact which was noted and resented by