her white cap. Tillie bent her head in response,
then stooped to pick up the suit case. But he interposed and took it
from her hands--and the touch of chivalry in the act went to her head
like wine.

She led the way up-stairs to the close, musty, best spare bedroom.

XV

THE WACKERNAGELS AT HOME

At the supper-table, the apparently inexhaustible topic of talk was the
refusal of the Hersheys to receive the new teacher into the bosom of
their family. A return to this theme again and again, on the part of
the various members of the Wackernagel household, did not seem to
lessen its interest for them, though the teacher himself did not take a
very animated part in its discussion. Tillie realized, as with an
absorbing interest she watched his fine face, that all he saw and heard
here was as novel to him as the world whence he had come would be to
her and her kindred and neighbors, could they be suddenly transplanted
into it. Tillie had never looked upon any human countenance which
seemed to express so much of that ideal world in which she lived her
real life.

"To turn him off after he got there!" Mrs. Wackernagel exclaimed,
reverting for the third time to the episode which had so excited the
family. "And after Lizzie and Jonas they'd sayed he could come yet!"

"Well, I say!" Mr. Wackernagel shook his head, as though the story,
even at its third recital, were full of surprises.

Mr. Wackernagel was a tall, raw-boned man with conspicuously large feet
and hands. He wore his hair plastered back from his face in a unique,
not to say distinguished style, which he privately considered highly
becoming his position as the proprietor of the New Canaan Hotel. Mr.
Wackernagel's self-satisfaction did indeed cover every detail of his
life--from the elegant fashion of his hair to the quality of the whisky
which he sold over the bar, and of which he never tired of boasting.
Not only was he entirely pleased with himself, but his good-natured
satisfaction included all his possessions--his horse first, then his
wife, his two daughters, his permanent boarder, "the Doc," and his
wife's niece Tillie. For people outside his own horizon, he had a
tolerant but contemptuous pity.

Mr. Wackernagel and the doctor both sat at table in their
shirt-sleeves, the proprietor wearing a clean white shirt (his
extravagance and vanity in using two white shirts a week being one of
the chief historical facts of the village), while the doctor was