ey're young. They quiet down, like all the rest
of the world."

Barnes shook his head. "But they _are_ hatching it over again. You meet
people here in society you couldn't meet at home. And it's all right.
The law backs them up."

"You're talking about divorce!" said the General. "Aye! it's astounding!
The tales one hears in the smoking-room after dinner! In Wyoming,
apparently, six months' residence, and there you are. You prove a little
cruelty, the husband makes everything perfectly easy, you say a civil
good-bye, and the thing's done. Well, they'll pay for it, my dear
Roger--they'll pay for it. Nobody ever yet trifled with the marriage law
with impunity."

The energy of the old man's bearing became him.

Through Roger's mind the thought flashed: "Poor dear Uncle Archie! If
he'd been a New Yorker he'd never have put up with Aunt Lavinia for
thirty years!"

They turned into their hotel, and ordered dinner in an hour's time.
Roger found some English letters waiting for him, and carried them off
to his room. He opened his mother's first. Lady Barnes wrote a large and
straggling hand, which required many sheets and much postage. It might
have been observed that her son looked at the sheets for a minute, with
a certain distaste, before he began upon them. Yet he was deeply
attached to his mother, and it was from her letters week by week that he
took his marching orders. If she only wouldn't ride her ideas quite so
hard; if she would sometimes leave him alone to act for himself!

Here it was again--the old story:

"Don't suppose I put these things before you on _my_ account. No,
indeed; what does it matter what happens to me? It is when I think
that you may have to spend your whole life as a clerk in a bank,
unless you rouse yourself now--(for you know, my dear Roger, though
you have very good wits, you're not as frightfully clever as people
have to be nowadays)--that I begin to despair. But that is
_entirely_ in your own hands. You have what is far more valuable
than cleverness--you have a delightful disposition, and you are one
of the handsomest of men. There! of course, I know you wouldn't let
me say it to you in your presence; but it's true all the same. Any
girl should be proud to marry you. There are plenty of rich girls
in America; and if you play your cards properly you will make her
and yourself happy. The grammar of that is not quite right,