be, some one seemed
struggling for release, or expression, or dominion. He interpreted it
promptly. Outwardly, he was living the life of Arthur Dillon, and
inwardly that Arthur was making war on Horace Endicott, taking
possession as an enemy seizes a stubborn land, reaching out for those
remote citadels wherein the essence of personality resides. He did not
object. He was rather pleased, though he shivered with a not unwelcome
dread.

The reception turned out a marvelous affair for him who had always been
bored by such ceremonies. His mother, resplendent in a silk dress of
changeable hue, seemed to walk on air. Mrs. Everard and her daughter
Mona assisted Anne in receiving the guests. The elder women he knew were
Irish peasants, who in childhood had run barefoot to school on a
breakfast of oatmeal porridge, and had since done their own washing and
baking for a time. Only a practised eye could have distinguished them
from their sisters born in the purple. Mona was a beauty, who earned her
own living as a teacher, and had the little virtues of the profession
well marked; truly a daughter of the gods, tall for a woman, with a
mocking face all sparkle and bloom, small eyes that flashed like gems, a
sharp tongue, and a head of silken hair, now known as the Titian red,
but at that time despised by all except artists and herself. She was a
witch, an enchantress, who thought no man as good as her brother, and
showed other men only the regard which irritates them. And Arthur loved
her and her mother because they belonged to Louis.

"I don't know how you'll like the arrangements," Louis said to him, when
all things were ready. "This is not a society affair. It's an affair of
the clan. The Dillons and their friends have a right to attend. So you
must be prepared for hodcarriers as well as aristocrats."

At three o'clock the house and the garden were thrown open to the stream
of guests. Arthur gazed in wonder. First came old men and women of all
conditions, laborers, servants, small shopkeepers, who had known his
father and been neighbors and clients for years. Dressed in their best,
and joyful over his return to life and home and friends, they wrung his
hands, wept over him, and blessed him until their warm delight and
sincerity nearly overcame him, who had never known the deep love of the
humble for the head of the clan. The Senator was their benefactor, their
bulwark and their glory; but Arthur was the heir, the hope of the
pr