in our rooms."

"Ah, then you're a Harvard man too!" said Mrs. Primer to herself, with
surprise, which she kept to herself, and she said to Mavering: "Oh yes,
indeed! It's altogether better. Aren't they nice looking fellows?" she
said, putting up her glass to look at the promenaders.

"Yes," Mr. Mavering assented. "I suppose," he added, out of the
consciousness of his own relation to the affair--"I suppose you've a son
somewhere here?"

"Oh dear, no!" cried Mrs. Primer, with a mingling, superhuman, but
for her of ironical deprecation and derision. "Only a daughter, Mr.
Mavering."

At this feat of Mrs. Pasmer's, Mr. Mavering looked at her with question
as to her precise intention, and ended by repeating, hopelessly, "Only a
daughter?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Pasmer, with a sigh of the same irony, "only a poor,
despised young girl, Mr. Mavering."

"You speak," said Mr. Mavering, beginning to catch on a little, "as if
it were a misfortune," and his, dignity broke up into a smile that had
its queer fascination.

"Why, isn't it?" asked Mrs. Pasmer.

"Well, I shouldn't have thought so."

"Then you don't believe that all that old-fashioned chivalry and
devotion have gone out? You don't think the young men are all spoiled
nowadays, and expect the young ladies to offer them attentions?"

"No," said Mr. Mavering slowly, as if recovering from the shock of the
novel ideas. "Do you?"

"Oh, I'm such a stranger in Boston--I've lived abroad so long--that I
don't know. One hears all kinds of things. But I'm so glad you're not
one of those--pessimists!"

"Well," said Mr. Mavering, still thoughtfully, "I don't know that I can
speak by the card exactly. I can't say how it is now. I haven't been
at a Class Day spread since my own Class Day; I haven't even been at
Commencement more than once or twice. But in my time here we didn't
expect the young ladies to show us attentions; at any rate, we didn't
wait for them to do it. We were very glad, to be asked to meet them, and
we thought it an honour if the young ladies would let us talk or dance
with them, or take them to picnics. I don't think that any of them could
complain of want of attention."

"Yes," said Mrs. Pasmer, "that's what I preached, that's what I
prophesied, when I brought my daughter home from Europe. I told her that
a girl's life in America was one long triumph; but they say now that
girls have more attention in London even than in Cambridge. One hears
such dreadful