me something easier! You've been bred differently, used to
different things, to doing them in a different way. We do things
slowly, leisurely, with a fine disregard of time, you, with the modern
rush, and bustle, and hurry. You are a man of the world--I repeat
it--up to the minute in everything--never lagging behind, unless you
wish. You never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. We never
do anything to-day that can be put off till to-morrow."

"And which do you prefer, the to-day or the to-morrow?" he asked.

"It depends on my humor, and my location, at the time--though, I must
admit, the to-day makes for thrift, and business, and success in
acquiring wealth."

"And success also in getting rid of it. It is a return toward the
primitive condition--the survival of the fittest. There must be losers
as well as acquirers."

"There's the pity of it!" she exclaimed, "that one must lose in order
that another may gain."

"But as we are not in Utopia or Altruria," he smiled, "it will continue
so to be. Why, even in Baltimore, they----"

"Oh, Baltimore is only an overgrown country town!" she exclaimed.

"Granted!" he replied. "With half a million population, it is as
provincial as Hampton, and thanks God for it--the most smug,
self-satisfied, self-sufficient municipality in the land, with its
cobblestones, its drains-in-the-gutters, its how much-holier-than-thou
air about everything."

"But it has excellent railway facilities!" she laughed.

"Because it happens to be on the main line between Washington and the
North."

"At least, the people are nice, barring a few mushrooms who are making
a great to-do."

"Yes, the people _are_ delightful!--And, when it comes to mushrooms,
Northumberland has Baltimore beaten to a frazzle. We raise a fresh crop
every night."

"Northumberland society must be exceedingly large!" she laughed.

"It is--but it's not overcrowded. About as many die every day, as are
born every night; and, at any rate, they don't interfere with those who
really belong--except to increase prices, and the cost of living, and
clog the avenue with automobiles."

"That is progress!"

"Yes, it's progress! but whither it leads no one knows--to the devil,
likely--or a lemon garden."

"'Blessed are the lemons on earth, for they shall be peaches in
Heaven!'" she quoted.

"What a glorious peach your Miss Erskine will be," he replied.

"I'm afraid you don't appreciate the great honor the lady did yo