rayed it should be by the daguerreotype, and that
a high, black stock would have been more suitable to him than his
businesslike, modern neck-gear. He had fine eyes, which seemed
habitually concerned with faraway things, though when he looked at
Cora they sparkled; however, it cannot be said that the sparkling
continued at its brightest when his glance wandered (as it not
infrequently did this evening) from her lovely head to the rose in
Mr. Corliss's white coat.

Hedrick, resuming a position upon the top step between the two
groups, found the conversation of the larger annoying because it
prevented him from hearing that of the smaller. It was carried on
for the greater part by his mother and Mr. Trumble; Laura sat
silent between these two; and Lindley's mood was obviously
contemplative. Mr. Wade Trumble, twenty-six, small, earnest, and
already beginning to lose his hair, was talkative enough.

He was one of those people who are so continuously aggressive that
they are negligible. "What's the matter here? Nobody pays any
attention to me. I'M important!" He might have had that legend
engraved on his card, it spoke from everything else that was his:
face, voice, gesture--even from his clothes, for they also
clamoured for attention without receiving it. Worn by another man,
their extravagance of shape and shade might have advertised a
self-sacrificing effort for the picturesque; but upon Mr. Trumble
they paradoxically confirmed an impression that he was well off
and close. Certainly this was the impression confirmed in the mind
of the shrewdest and most experienced observer on that veranda.
The accomplished Valentine Corliss was quite able to share Cora's
detachment satisfactorily, and be very actively aware of other
things at the same time. For instance: Richard Lindley's
preoccupation had neither escaped him nor remained unconnected in
his mind with that gentleman's somewhat attentive notice of the
present position of a certain rose.

Mr. Trumble took up Mrs. Madison's placid weather talk as if it
had been a flaunting challenge; he made it a matter of conscience
and for argument; for he was a doughty champion, it appeared, when
nothings were in question, one of those stern men who will have
accuracy in the banal, insisting upon portent in talk meant to be
slid over as mere courteous sound.

"I don't know about that, now," he said with severe emphasis. "I
don't know about that at all. I can't say I agree with you. I