mistress' ambition to have the lively times as numerous as possible--to
dance with great frequency among the pictures. Six or eight couples could
gyrate here at once. There was young blood under her roof, and there was
young blood to summon from outside; and to set this blood seething before
the eyes of visiting celebrities in the arts and letters was her dearest
wish. She had more than one spare bedroom, of course; and the Eminent and
the Queer were always welcome for a sojourn of a week or so, whether they
came to read papers and deliver lectures or not. She was quite as well
satisfied when they didn't. If they would but sit upon her wide veranda in
spring or autumn, or before her big open fireplace in winter and "just
talk," she would be as open-eyed and open-eared as you pleased.

"This is much nicer," she would say. Nicer than what, she did not always
make clear.

Yes, the house was nearly three-quarters of a mile to the west of the
campus, but it was twice as far as if it had been north or south. Trains
and trolleys, intent on serving the interests of the great majority, took
their own courses and gave her guests no aid. If the evening turned cold or
blustery or brought a driving rain she would say:

"You can't go out in this. You must stay all night. We have room and to
spare."

If she wanted anybody to stay very much, she would even add: "I can't think
of your walking toward the lake with such a gale in your face,"--regardless
of the fact that the lake wind was the rarest of them all and that in nine
cases out of ten the rain or snow would be not in people's faces but at
their backs.