ion of the social concepts of an
old-fashioned, rich, stolid, commercial Chicago family, in obedience
to the decree of the modernized younger son and daughters. The process
is more or less tragic, though it is set forth with an artistic
lightness of touch. 'With the Procession' is such a story as might
happen round the corner in any year. Herr Sienkiewicz's Polanyetskis
are not more genuinely "children of the soil" than Mr. Fuller's
Marshalls and Bateses. In these later stories he seems to be asking
himself, in most serious words, what is to be the social outcome of
the great industrial civilization of the time, and to demand of his
readers that they too shall fall to thinking.

AT THE HEAD OF THE MARCH

From 'With the Procession.' Copyright 1894 by Henry B. Fuller, and
reprinted by permission of Harper & Brothers, publishers, New York

"Well, here goes!" said Jane half aloud, with her foot on the lowest
of the glistening granite steps. The steps led up to the ponderous
pillared arches of a grandiose and massive porch; above the porch a
sturdy and rugged balustrade half intercepted the rough-faced glitter
of a vast and variegated facade; and higher still, the morning sun
shattered its beams over a tumult of angular roofs and towering
chimneys.

"It _is_ swell, I declare!" said Jane, with her eye on the
wrought-iron work of the outer doors, and the jewels and bevels of the
inner ones.

"Where is the thingamajig, anyway?" she inquired of herself. She was
searching for the door-bell, and she fell back on her own rustic lingo
in order to ward off the incipient panic caused by this overwhelming
splendor. "Oh, here it is! There!" She gave a push. "And now I'm in
for it." She had decided to take the richest and best known and most
fashionable woman on her list to start with; the worst over at the
beginning, she thought, the rest would follow easily enough.

"I suppose the 'maid' will wear a cap and a silver tray," she observed
further. "Or will it be a gold one, with diamonds around the edge?"

The door-knob turned from within. "Is Mrs. Bates--" she began.

The door opened half-way. A grave, smooth-shaven man appeared; his
chin and upper lip had the mottled smudge that shows in so many of
those conscientious portraits of the olden time.

"Gracious me!" said the startled Jane to herself.

She dropped her disconcerted vision to the door-mat. Then she saw that
the man wore knee-breeches and black-silk stocking