n the woods and
pastur's."

"It's a good idea," said Westover, "and it's fresh and picturesque."
Whitwell laughed for pleasure.

"They told me what a consolation you were to the ladies, with your walks
and talks."

"Well, I try to give 'em something to think about," said Whitwell.

"But why do you confine your ministrations to one sex?"

"I don't, on purpose. But it's the only sex here, three-fourths of the
time. Even the children are mostly all girls. When the husbands come up
Saturday nights, they don't want to go on a tramp Sundays. They want to
lay off and rest. That's about how it is. Well, you see some changes
about Lion's Head, I presume?" he asked, with what seemed an impersonal
pleasure in them.

"I should rather have found the old farm. But I must say I'm glad to find
such a good hotel."

"Jeff and his mother made their brags to you?" said Whitwell, with a kind
of amiable scorn. "I guess if it wa'n't for Cynthy she wouldn't know
where she was standin', half the time. It don't matter where Jeff stands,
I guess. Jackson's the best o' the lot, now the old man's gone." There
was no one by at the moment to hear these injuries except Westover, but
Whitwell called them out with a frankness which was perhaps more
carefully adapted to the situation than it seemed. Westover made no
attempt to parry them formally; but he offered some generalities in
extenuation of the unworthiness of the Durgins, which Whitwell did not
altogether refuse.

"Oh, it's all right. Old woman talk to you about Jeff's going to college?
I thought so. Wants to make another Dan'el Webster of him. Guess she
can's far forth as Dan'el's graduatin' went." Westover tried to remember
how this had been with the statesman, but could not. Whitwell added, with
intensifying irony so of look and tone: "Guess the second Dan'el won't
have a chance to tear his degree up; guess he wouldn't ever b'en ready to
try for it if it had depended on him. They don't keep any record at
Harvard, do they, of the way fellows are prepared for their preliminary
examinations?"

"I don't quite know what you mean," said Westover.

"Oh, nothin'. You get a chance some time to ask Jeff who done most of his
studyin' for him at the Academy."

This hint was not so darkling but Westover could understand that Whitwell
attributed Jeff's scholarship to the help of Cynthia, but he would not
press him to an open assertion of the fact. There was something painful
in it to him; it