uring the day he spoke to him only of business
matters. That must have been his way of letting Corey see that he was
not overcome by the honour of his father's visit. But he presented
himself at Nantasket with the event so perceptibly on his mind that his
wife asked: "Well, Silas, has Rogers been borrowing any more money of
you? I don't want you should let that thing go too far. You've done
enough."

"You needn't be afraid. I've seen the last of Rogers for one while."
He hesitated, to give the fact an effect of no importance. "Corey's
father called this morning."

"Did he?" said Mrs. Lapham, willing to humour his feint of
indifference. "Did HE want to borrow some money too?" "Not as I
understood." Lapham was smoking at great ease, and his wife had some
crocheting on the other side of the lamp from him.

The girls were on the piazza looking at the moon on the water again.
"There's no man in it to-night," Penelope said, and Irene laughed
forlornly.

"What DID he want, then?" asked Mrs. Lapham.

"Oh, I don't know. Seemed to be just a friendly call. Said he ought
to have come before."

Mrs. Lapham was silent a while. Then she said: "Well, I hope you're
satisfied now."

Lapham rejected the sympathy too openly offered. "I don't know about
being satisfied. I wa'n't in any hurry to see him."

His wife permitted him this pretence also. "What sort of a person is
he, anyway?"

"Well, not much like his son. There's no sort of business about him.
I don't know just how you'd describe him. He's tall; and he's got
white hair and a moustache; and his fingers are very long and limber.
I couldn't help noticing them as he sat there with his hands on the top
of his cane. Didn't seem to be dressed very much, and acted just like
anybody. Didn't talk much. Guess I did most of the talking. Said he
was glad I seemed to be getting along so well with his son. He asked
after you and Irene; and he said he couldn't feel just like a stranger.
Said you had been very kind to his wife. Of course I turned it off.
Yes," said Lapham thoughtfully, with his hands resting on his knees,
and his cigar between the fingers of his left hand, "I guess he meant
to do the right thing, every way. Don't know as I ever saw a much
pleasanter man. Dunno but what he's about the pleasantest man I ever
did see." He was not letting his wife see in his averted face the
struggle that revealed itself there--the struggle of stalwart
achievement n