to take care of her. The
position would be good, too. He thought generously of that
consideration, although it touched him in his tenderest spot of
vanity. "She will do well to marry an ex-army officer," he thought.
"She will have the entree to any society." Presently he arose and
went up-stairs to bed. He passed roughly by the nook where he had so
often fancied her sitting, and closed, as it were, the door of his
fancy against her with a bang. He set a lamp on a table at the head
of his bed and read his political economy until dawn. It was, in
fact, too hot for any nervous person to sleep. Now and then his
thoughts wandered, the incessant drone of the night insects outside
seemed to distract his attention from his book like some persistent
clamor of nature recalling him to his leading-strings in which she
had held him from the first. But resolutely he turned again to his
book. At dawn he fell asleep, and woke an hour later to another
steaming day.

Chapter XV

"I think we shall have thunder-showers to-day," Mrs. Anderson
remarked, as she poured the coffee at the breakfast-table. Even this
old gentlewoman, carefully attired in her dainty white lawn wrapper,
had that slightly dissipated, bewildered, and rancorous air that
extreme heat is apt to impart to the finest-grained of us. Her fair
old face had a glossy flush, her white hair, which usually puffed
with a soft wave over her temples, was stringy. She allowed her
wrapper to remain open at the neck, exposing her old throat, and
dispensed with her usual swathing of lace. She confessed that she had
not been able to sleep at all; still she kept her trust in
Providence, and would scarcely admit to discomfort. "I am sure there
will be showers, and cool the air," she said, with her sweet
optimism. As she spoke she fanned herself with the great palm-leaf
fan with a green bow on the stem, which she was never without during
this weather. "It is certainly very warm so early in the season. One
must feel it a little, but it is always so delightful after a shower
that it compensates."

"You are showing a lovely Christian spirit, mother," Anderson
returned, smiling at her with fond amusement, "but don't be
hypocritical."

"My son, what do you mean?"

"Mother, dear, you don't really like this weather. You only pretend
to because man did not make it."

"Randolph!"

"Only think how you would growl if the mayor and aldermen, or even
the president, made this weather!"