r he thought that these might one
day be of use to him in his chosen line.

X

Senator St. John, for he was at heart democratic, and heard little of
Aladdin that was not to Aladdin's credit, derigorized the taboo which he
had once placed on Aladdin's and Margaret's friendship, and allowed the
young man to come occasionally to the house, and occasionally loaned
him books. Margaret was really at the bottom of this, but she stayed
comfortably at the bottom, and teased her father to do the needful, and
he, wrapped up in the great issues which were threatening to divide the
country, complied. In those days the senator's interests extended
far beyond his family, Margaret and the three powerful sons who were
building a reputation for the firm of John St. John & Brothers, lawyers
in Portland. He gave Aladdin leave to come and go, even smiled grimly
as he did so, and, except at those moments when he met him face to
face, forgot that Aladdin existed. Margaret enjoyed Aladdin hugely,
and unconsciously sat for the heroine of every novel he began, and
the inspiration of every verse that he wrote. When Aladdin reached his
eighteenth year and Margaret her sixteenth there was such a delightful
and strong friendship between them that the other young people of the
town talked. Margaret in her heart of hearts was fonder of Aladdin than
of anybody else--when she was with him, or under the immediate influence
of having been with him, for nobody else had such extraordinary ideas,
or such a fund of amusing vitality, or such fascinating moods. Like
every one with a touch of the Celt in him, Aladdin was by turns
gloomiest and most unfortunate of all mortals upon whom the sun
positively would not shine, or the gayest of the gay. From his droll
manner of singing a song, to the seriousness with which he sometimes
bore all the sufferings of all the world, he seemed to her a most
complex and unusual individual. But his spells were of the instant, and
her thoughts were very often on that beautiful young man, Manners, who,
having completed his course at the law school, was coming to spend a
month before he should begin to practise. Since his first visit years
ago, Manners, now a grown man of twenty, had spent much of many of his
vacations with the St. Johns. The senator was obliged, as well as his
limitations would allow, to take the place of a mother to Margaret, and
though it was barely guessable from his words or actions, he loved Peter
M