Billy rose reluctantly.  “I’m leaving you some marshmallows,” he said.  “I hope if you offer Willis one, it’ll choke him, or,” as he opened the door, “maybe he’ll break his leg or his neck on the way out,” and he shut the door firmly behind him.

Amos submitted with some grumbling to being relegated to the dining-room with Lizzie for the evening.  He complained somewhat bitterly, however, over the condition of his armchair which had refused to dry and was in a state of stickiness that defied description.

Old Lizzie, who was almost as flushed and bright-eyed over the expected caller as Lydia, finally squelched Amos with the remark, “For the land’s sake, Amos, you talk like an old man instead of a man still forty who ought to remember his own courting days!”

Willis arrived, shortly after eight.  If the trip had been somewhat strenuous, he did not mention the fact.  He shook hands with Amos, who, always eager to meet new people, would have lingered.  But Lizzie called to him and he reluctantly withdrew.  Lydia established her guest with his back to the dining-room door and the evening began.

The Harvard man was frankly curious.  This was his first experience west of New York and he was trying to classify his impressions.  The beauty of Lake City had intrigued him at first, he told Lydia, into believing that he was merely in a transplanted New England town.  “And you know there are plenty of New Englanders on the faculty and many of the people of Lake Shore Avenue are second and third generation New Englanders.  But the townspeople as a whole!” He stopped with a groan.

“What’s the matter with them?” Lydia asked, a trifle belligerently.  She was sitting on the couch, chin cupped in her hand, watching her caller so intently that she was forgetting to be bashful.

“Oh, you know they’re so exactly like my classes in Shakespeare—­raw-minded, no background, and plenty of them are of New England descent!  I don’t understand it.  It’s New England without its ancient soul, your Middle West.”

“I don’t know what you mean by background,” said Lydia.

“But, Miss Dudley, you have it!  Something, your reading or your environment has given you a mental referendum, as it were.  You get more out of your Shakespeare than most of your mates because you understand so many of his references.  You must have been a wide reader or your father and mother taught you well.”

“I—­you’ve got the wrong impression about me,” Lydia protested.  “I’ve read always and mostly good things, thanks to Mr. Levine, but so have many other people in Lake City.”

Professor Willis looked at Lydia thoughtfully.  “Levine?  I thought he was a cheap scamp.”

Lydia flushed.  “He’s my best friend and a finely read man.  He’s kept me supplied with books.”

“Finely read, on the one hand,” exclaimed Willis, “and on the other robbing Indians.  How do you account for it?”