f he thought about it. "I believe they are the best
people I know," he went on. "Perhaps it is because they have been so
kind to me; but they are kind to each other, too; kind, good people----"

"I know," she said, nodding--a flower on the gauzy hat set to vibrating
in a tantalizing way. "I know. There are fat women who rock and rock
on piazzas by the sea, and they speak of country people as the 'lower
classes.' How happy this big family is in not knowing it is the lower
classes!" "We haven't read Nordau down here," said John. "Old Tom
Martin's favorite work is 'The Descent of Man.' Miss Tibbs admires
Tupper, and 'Beulah,' and some of us possess the works of E. P. Roe--and
why not?"

"Yes; what of it," she returned, "since you escape Nordau? I think the
conversation we hear from the other windows is as amusing and quite as
loud as most of that I hear in Rouen during the winter; and Rouen, you
know, is just like any other big place nowadays, though I suppose
there are Philadelphians, for instance, who would be slow to believe a
statement like that."

"Oh, but they are not all of Philadelphia----" He left the sentence,
smilingly.

"And yet somebody said, 'The further West I travel the more convinced I
am the Wise Men came from the East.'"

"Yes," he answered. "'From' is the important word in that."

"It was a girl from Southeast Cottonbridge, Massachusetts," said Helen,
"who heard I was from Indiana and asked me if I didn't hate to live so
far away from things." There was a pause, while she leaned out of the
window with her face aside from him. Then she remarked carelessly, "I
met her at Winter Harbor."

"Do you go to Winter Harbor?" he asked.

"We have gone there every summer until this one, for years. Have you
friends who go there?"

"I had--once. There was a classmate of mine from Rouen----"

"What was his name? Perhaps I know him." She stole a glance at him. His
face had fallen into sad lines, and he looked like the man who had come
up the aisle with the Hon. Kedge Halloway. A few moments before he had
seemed another person entirely.

"He's forgotten me, I dare say. I haven't seen him for seven years; and
that's a long time, you know. Besides, he's 'out in the world,' where
remembering is harder. Here in Plattville we don't forget."

"Were you ever at Winter Harbor?"

"I was--once. I spent a very happy day there long ago, when you must
have been a little girl. Were you there in--"

"Listen!" she crie