convinced me of his gratitude, Hilda was bidding an
affectionate good night to Maude. A few moments later she bore her
husband and daughters away, and we heard the tap-tap of her cane on the
walk outside....

XVII.

The remembrance of that dinner when with my connivance the Scherers made
their social debut is associated in my mind with the coming of the
fulness of that era, mad and brief, when gold rained down like manna from
our sooty skies. Even the church was prosperous; the Rev. Carey Heddon,
our new minister, was well abreast of the times, typical of the new and
efficient Christianity that has finally buried the hatchet with
enlightened self-interest. He looked like a young and prosperous man of
business, and indeed he was one.

The fame of our city spread even across the Atlantic, reaching obscure
hamlets in Europe, where villagers gathered up their lares and penates,
mortgaged their homes, and bought steamship tickets from
philanthropists,--philanthropists in diamonds. Our Huns began to arrive,
their Attilas unrecognized among them: to drive our honest Americans and
Irish and Germans out of the mills by "lowering the standard of living."
Still--according to the learned economists in our universities,
enlightened self-interest triumphed. Had not the honest Americans and
Germans become foremen and even presidents of corporations? What greater
vindication for their philosophy could be desired?

The very aspect of the city changed like magic. New buildings sprang high
in the air; the Reliance Trust (Mr. Grierson's), the Scherer Building,
the Hambleton Building; a stew hotel, the Ashuela, took proper care of
our visitors from the East,--a massive, grey stone, thousand-awninged
affair on Boyne Street, with a grill where it became the fashion to go
for supper after the play, and a head waiter who knew in a few weeks
everyone worth knowing.

To return for a moment to the Huns. Maude had expressed a desire to see a
mill, and we went, one afternoon, in Mr. Scherer's carriage to
Steelville, with Mr. Scherer himself,--a bewildering, educative, almost
terrifying experience amidst fumes and flames, gigantic forces and
titanic weights. It seemed a marvel that we escaped being crushed or
burned alive in those huge steel buildings reverberating with sound. They
appeared a very bedlam of chaos, instead of the triumph of order,
organization and human skill. Mr. Scherer was very proud of it all, and
ours was a sort of t