prepare for a new social aristocracy; but to them old times were sweet and
old friends dear.

As the guests gathered in the large "front room," Alexander Hitchcock stood
above them, as the finest, most courteous spirit. There was race in
him--sweetness and strength and refinement--the qualities of the best
manhood of democracy. This effect of simplicity and sweetness was
heightened in the daughter, Louise. She had been born in Chicago, in the
first years of the Hitchcock fight. She remembered the time when the
billiard-room chairs were quite the most noted possessions in the basement
and three-story brick house on West Adams Street. She had followed the
chairs in the course of the Hitchcock evolution until her aunt had insisted
on her being sent east to the Beaumanor Park School. Two years of "refined
influences" in this famous establishment, with a dozen other girls from
new-rich families, had softened her tones and prolonged her participles,
but had touched her not essentially. Though she shared with her younger
brother the feeling that the Hitchcocks were not getting the most out of
their opportunities, she could understand the older people more than he. If
she sympathized with her father's belief that the boy ought to learn to
sell lumber, or "do something for himself," yet she liked the fact that he
played polo. It was the right thing to be energetic, upright, respected; it
was also nice to spend your money as others did. And it was very, very nice
to have the money to spend.

To-night, as Sommers came across the hall to the drawing-room, she left the
group about the door to welcome him. "Weren't you surprised," she asked him
with an ironical laugh, "at the people, I mean--all ages and kinds? You see
Parker had to be appeased. He didn't want to stay, and I don't know why he
should. So we gave him Laura Lindsay." She nodded good-naturedly in the
direction of a young girl, whose sharp thin little face was turned joyfully