so he said, he had looked up
ever since he had been admitted to the bar.

"It would be a pleasure to me, Hugh, as well as a matter of pride," he
said cordially, but with dignity, "to have Matthew Paret's son in my
office. I suppose you will be wishing to take your mother somewhere this
summer, but if you care to come here in the autumn, you will be welcome.
You will begin, of course, as other young men begin,--as I began. But I
am a believer in blood, and I'll be glad to have you. Mr. Fowndes and Mr.
Ripon feel the same way." He escorted me to the door himself.

Everywhere I went during that brief visit home I was struck by change, by
the crumbling and decay of institutions that once had held me in thrall,
by the superimposition of a new order that as yet had assumed no definite
character. Some of the old landmarks had disappeared; there were new and
aggressive office buildings, new and aggressive residences, new and
aggressive citizens who lived in them, and of whom my mother spoke with
gentle deprecation. Even Claremore, that paradise of my childhood, had
grown shrivelled and shabby, even tawdry, I thought, when we went out
there one Sunday afternoon; all that once represented the magic word
"country" had vanished. The old flat piano, made in Philadelphia ages
ago, the horsehair chairs and sofa had been replaced by a nondescript
furniture of the sort displayed behind plate-glass windows of the city's
stores: rocking-chairs on stands, upholstered in clashing colours, their
coiled springs only half hidden by tassels, and "ornamental" electric
fixtures, instead of the polished coal-oil lamps. Cousin Jenny had grown
white, Willie was a staid bachelor, Helen an old maid, while Mary had
married a tall, anaemic young man with glasses, Walter Kinley, whom
Cousin Robert had taken into the store. As I contemplated the Brecks odd
questions suggested themselves: did honesty and warm-heartedness
necessarily accompany a lack of artistic taste? and was virtue its own
reward, after all? They drew my mother into the house, took off her
wraps, set her down in the most comfortable rocker, and insisted on
making her a cup of tea.

I was touched. I loved them still, and yet I was conscious of
reservations concerning them. They, too, seemed a little on the defensive
with me, and once in a while Mary was caustic in her remarks.

"I guess nothing but New York will be good enough for Hugh now. He'll be
taking Cousin Sarah away from us."