He says it's a homesick world."

"He's dead right," said Jeff.

"What do you want of old Addington?" said she. "What do we need we
haven't got?"

Jeff thought of several words, but they wouldn't answer. Beauty? No, old
Addington was oftener funny than not. There was no beauty in a pint-pot.
Even the echoes there rang thin. Peace? But he was the last man to go to
sleep over the task of the day.

"I just want old Addington," he said. "Anyway I want to drop in to it as
you'd drop into the movies. I want to hesitate on the brink of doing
things that shock people. Nobody's shocked at anything now. I want to
see the blush of modesty. Amabel, it's all faded out."

She looked at him, distressed.

"Jeff," said she, "do you think our young people are not--what they
were?"

He loved her beautiful indirection.

"I don't want 'em to be what they were," said he, "if they have to lie
to do it. I don't know exactly what I do want. Only I'm homesick for old
Addington. Amabel, what should you say to my going into kindergarten
work?"

"You always did joke me," said she. "Get a rise out of me? Is that what
you call it?"

"I'm as sober as an owl," said Jeff. "I want these pesky Poles and
Syrians and all the rest of them to learn what they're up against when
they come over here to run the government. I'm on the verge, Amabel, of
hiring a hall and an interpreter, and teaching 'em something about
American history, if there's anything to teach that isn't disgraceful."

"And yet," said she, "when Weedon Moore talks to those same men you go
and break up the meeting."

"But bless you, dear old girl," said Jeff, "Weedon was teaching 'em the
rules for wearing the red flag. And I'm going to give 'em a straight
tip about Old Glory. When I've got through with 'em, you won't know 'em
from New Englanders dyed in the wool."

She meditated.

"If only you and Weedon would talk it over," she ventured, "and combine
your forces. You're both so clever, Jeff."

"Combine with Weedie? Not on your life. Why, I'm Weedie's antidote. He
preaches riot and sedition, and I'm the dose taken as soon as you can
get it down."

Then she looked at him, though affectionately, in sad doubt, and Jeff
saw he had, in some way, been supplanted in her confidence though not in
her affection. He wouldn't push it. Amabel was too precious to be lost
for kindergarten work.

When they had talked a little more, but about topics less dangerous, the
garden and the dro