or having happened to him as if he could have prevented it.
It would not have happened, of course, if he had not gone to Tuskingum,
and she could say that to him; now it seemed to him that his going,
which had been so imperative before he went, was altogether needless.
Nothing but harm had come of it, and it had been a selfish indulgence of
a culpable weakness.

It was a little better for Kenton when he found himself with his family,
and they went down together to the breakfast which the mother had
engaged the younger children to make as pleasant as they could for their
father, and not worry him with talk about Tuskingum. They had, in fact,
got over their first season of homesickness, and were postponing their
longing for Tuskingum till their return from Europe, when they would all
go straight out there. Kenton ran the gauntlet of welcome from the black
elevator-boys and bell-boys and the head-waiter, who went before him to
pull out the judge's chair, with commanding frowns to his underlings
to do the like for the rest of the family; and as his own clumsy Irish
waiter stood behind his chair, breathing heavily upon the judge's head,
he gave his order for breakfast, with a curious sense of having got home
again from some strange place. He satisfied Boyne that his pigeons and
poultry had been well cared for through the winter, and he told Lottie
that he had not met much of anybody except Dick's family, before he
recollected seeing half a dozen of her young men at differed times. She
was not very exacting about them and her mind seemed set upon Europe, or
at least she talked of nothing else. Ellen was quiet as she always was,
but she smiled gently on her father, and Mrs. Kenton told him of the
girl's preparations for going, and congratulated herself on their wisdom
in having postponed their sailing, in view of all they had to do; and
she made Kenton feel that everything was in the best possible shape. As
soon as she got him alone in their own room, she said, "Well, what is
it, poppa?"

Then he had to tell her, and she listened with ominous gravity. She did
not say that now he could see how much better it would have been if he
had not gone, but she made him say it for her; and she would not let
him take comfort in the notion of keeping the fact of his interview with
Bittridge from Ellen. "It would be worse than useless. He will write to
her about it, and then she will know that we have been, concealing it."

Kenton was ast