wenty years. His English soul was disturbed and affronted by a wholly
new realization of the strength of America, by the giant forces of the
young nation, as they are to be felt pulsing in the Federal City. He was
up in arms for the Old World, wondering sorely and secretly what the New
might do with her in the times to come, and foreseeing an
ever-increasing deluge of unlovely things--ideals, principles,
manners--flowing from this western civilization, under which his own
gods were already half buried, and would soon be hidden beyond recovery.
And in this despondency which possessed him, in spite of the attentions
of Embassies, and luncheons at the White House, he had heard that Roger
was in New York, and could not resist the temptation to send for him.
After all, Roger was his heir. Unless the boy flagrantly misbehaved
himself, he would inherit General Hobson's money and small estate in
Northamptonshire. Before the death of Roger's father this prospective
inheritance, indeed, had not counted for very much in the family
calculations. The General had even felt a shyness in alluding to a
matter so insignificant in comparison with the general scale on which
the Barnes family lived. But since the death of Barnes _pere_, and the
complete pecuniary ruin revealed by that event, Roger's expectations
from his uncle had assumed a new importance. The General was quite aware
of it. A year before this date he would never have dreamed of summoning
Roger to attend him at a moment's notice. That he had done so, and that
Roger had obeyed him, showed how closely even the family relation may
depend on pecuniary circumstance.

The steamer swung round to the landing-place under the hill of Mount
Vernon. Again, in disembarkation, there was a crowd and rush which set
the General's temper on edge. He emerged from it, hot and breathless,
after haranguing the functionary at the gates on the inadequacy of the
arrangements and the likelihood of an accident. Then he and Roger strode
up the steep path, beside beds of blue periwinkles, and under old trees
just bursting into leaf. A spring sunshine was in the air and on the
grass, which had already donned its "livelier emerald." The air quivered
with heat, and the blue dome of sky diffused it. Here and there a
magnolia in full flower on the green slopes spread its splendour of
white or pinkish blossom to the sun; the great river, shimmering and
streaked with light, swept round the hill, and out into a