ding
to them. Last winter she had recited the odes of Horace about the
house--it was exactly her notion of the student-like thing to
do--until Claude feared he would always associate that poet with
the heaviness of hurriedly prepared luncheons.

Mrs. Wheeler liked to feel that Claude was assisting this worthy
pair in their struggle for an education; but he had long ago
decided that since neither of the Chapins got anything out of
their efforts but a kind of messy inefficiency, the struggle
might better have been relinquished in the beginning. He took
care of his own room; kept it bare and habitable, free from
Annabelle's attentions and decorations. But the flimsy pretences
of light-housekeeping were very distasteful to him. He was born
with a love of order, just as he was born with red hair. It was a
personal attribute.

The boy felt bitterly about the way in which he had been brought
up, and about his hair and his freckles and his awkwardness. When
he went to the theatre in Lincoln, he took a seat in the gallery,
because he knew that he looked like a green country boy. His
clothes were never right. He bought collars that were too high
and neckties that were too bright, and hid them away in his
trunk. His one experiment with a tailor was unsuccessful. The
tailor saw at once that his stammering client didn't know what he
wanted, so he persuaded him that as the season was spring he
needed light checked trousers and a blue serge coat and vest.
When Claude wore his new clothes to St. Paul's church on Sunday
morning, the eyes of every one he met followed his smart legs
down the street. For the next week he observed the legs of old
men and young, and decided there wasn't another pair of checked
pants in Lincoln. He hung his new clothes up in his closet and
never put them on again, though Annabelle Chapin watched for them
wistfully. Nevertheless, Claude thought he could recognize a
well-dressed man when he saw one. He even thought he could
recognize a well-dressed woman. If an attractive woman got into
the street car when he was on his way to or from Temple Place, he
was distracted between the desire to look at her and the wish to
seem indifferent.

Claude is on his way back to Lincoln, with a fairly liberal
allowance which does not contribute much to his comfort or
pleasure. He has no friends or instructors whom he can regard
with admiration, though the need to admire is just now uppermost
in his nature. He is convince