“Ah, ladies’ feelings!” Trenholme rallied her openly.  “But whatever you may feel, you assuredly do represent them, and owe to them all you are.”

“Very true,” said the mother approvingly.  “Papa had black hair, Principal Trenholme; and although my daughter’s hair is brown, I often notice in it just that gloss and curl that was so beautiful in his.”

“Yes, like and unlike are oddly blended.  My father was a butcher by trade, and although my work in life has been widely different from his, I often notice in myself something of just those qualities which enabled him to succeed so markedly, and I know that they are my chief reliance.  My brother, who has determined to follow my father’s trade, is not so like him in many ways as I am.”

If he had said that his father had had red hair, he would not have said it with less emphasis.  No one present would have doubted his truthfulness on the one point, nor did they now doubt it on this other; but no one mastered the sense and force of what he had said until minutes, more or less in each case, had flown past, and in the meantime he had talked on, and his talk had drifted to other points in the subject of heredity.  Sophia answered him; the discussion became general.

Blue and Red came offering cups of tea.

“Aren’t they pretty?” said the youngest Miss Brown, again lifting her eyes to Trenholme for sympathy in her admiration.

“Sh—­sh—­,” said the elder ladies, as if it were possible that Blue and Red could be kept in ignorance of their own charms.

A man nervously tired can feel acute disappointment at the smallest, silliest thing.  Trenholme had expected that Sophia would pour out his tea; he thought it would have refreshed him then to the very soul, even if she had given it indifferently.  The cup he took seemed like some bitter draught he was swallowing for politeness’ sake.  When it, and all the necessary talk concerning it, were finished, together with other matters belonging to the hour, he got himself out of his big chair, and Mrs. Brown’s horses, that had been switching their tails in the lane, drove him home.

The carriage gone, Mrs. Brown’s curiosity was at hand directly.  She and Mrs. Rexford were standing apart where with motherly kindness they had been bidding him good-bye.

“I suppose, Mrs. Rexford, you know—­you have always known—­this fact concerning Principal Trenholme’s origin.  I mean what he alluded to just now.”  Mrs. Brown spoke, not observing Mrs. Rexford but the group in which her daughters were prominent figures.

Nothing ever impressed Mrs. Rexford’s imagination vividly that did not concern her own family.

“I do not think it has been named to me,” said she, “but no doubt my husband and Sophia—­”

“You think they have known it?” It was of importance to Mrs. Brown to know whether Captain Rexford and Sophia had known or not; for if they knew and made no difference—­“If Miss Rexford has not objected.  She is surely a judge in such matters!”