Alexina disappeared, repressing a desire to sing; and young Dwight,
receiving permission, seated himself on the grass at Mrs. Groome's feet. He
was lithe and graceful and as he threw back his head and looked up at his
hostess with his straight, honest glance the good impression he had made
was visibly enhanced. Mrs. Groome gave him the warm and gracious smile that
only her intimate friends and paid inferiors had ever seen.

"The young men of to-day are a great disappointment to me," she observed.

"Oh, they are all right, I guess. Most of the men that go about have rich
fathers--or near-rich ones. I wish I had one myself."

"And you would be as dissipated as the rest, I presume."

"No, I have no inclinations that way. But a man gets a better start in
life. And a man's a nonentity without money."

"Not if he has family."

"My family is good--in Utica. But that is of no use to me here."

"But your family _is_ good?"

"Oh, yes, it goes 'way back. There is a family mansion in Utica that is
over two hundred years old. But when the business district swamped that
part of the old town it was sold, and what it brought was divided among
six. My father came out here but did not make much of a success of himself,
so that he and my mother might as well have been on the Fiji Islands for