It was the day of his great speech, the speech that made him, it was
said.

As Mrs. Carriswood sank back, turning a little in an instinctive effort
to repulse her own sympathy, she was aware of the presence near her
of an elderly man and woman. The old man wore a shining silk hat and
shining new black clothes. His expansive shirt-bosom was very white, but
not glossy, and rumpled in places; and his collar was of the spiked and
antique pattern known as a "dickey." His wrinkled, red face was edged by
a white fringe of whisker. He wore large gold-bowed spectacles, and his
jaws worked incessantly.

The woman was a little, mild, wrinkled creature, with an anxious blue
eye and snowy hair, smoothed down over her ears, under her fine bonnet.
She was richly dressed, but her silks and velvets ill suited the
season. Had she seen them anywhere else, Mrs. Carriswood might not
have recognized them; but there, with Tommy before them, both of them
feverishly absorbed in Tommy, she recognized them at a glance. She had
a twinge of pity, watching the old faces pale and kindle. With the first
rustle of applause, she saw the old father slip his hand into the
old mother's. They sat well behind a pillar; and however excited they
became, they never so lost themselves as to lean in front of their
shield. This, also, she noticed. The speech over, the woman wiped her
eyes. The old man joined in the tumult of applause that swept over the
galleries, but the old woman pulled his arm, evidently feeling that it
was not decent for them to applaud. She sat rigid, with red cheeks and
her eyes brimming; he was swaying and clapping and laughing in a roar of
delight. But it was he that drew her away, finally, while she fain would
have lingered to look at Tommy receiving congratulations below.

"Poor things," said Mrs. Carriswood, "I do believe they haven't let him
know that they are here." And she remembered how she had pitied them
for this very possibility of humiliation years before. But she did not
pursue the adventure, and some obscure motive prevented her speaking of
it to Miss Van Harlem.

Did Tommy's parents tell Tommy? If they did, Tommy made no sign. The
morning found him with the others, in a beautiful white flannel suit,
with a silk shirt and a red silk sash, looking handsomer than any man of
the party. He took the congratulations of the company modestly. Either
he was not much puffed up, or he had the art of concealment.

They saw Alexandri