“Ought I to say good night?” asked John with a smile, as he seated himself on the disappearance of Mr. and Mrs. Carling.

“I don’t see any reason,” she replied.  “It isn’t late.  Julius is in one of his periods of retiring early just now.  By and by he will be sure to take up the idea again that his best sleep is after midnight.  At present he is on the theory that it is before twelve o’clock.”

“How has he been since your return?” John asked.

“Better in some ways, I think,” she replied.  “He seems to enjoy the home life in contrast with the traveling about and living in hotels; and then, in a moderate way, he is obliged to give some attention to business matters, and to come in contact with men and affairs generally.”

“And you?” said John.  “You find it pleasant to be back?”

“Yes,” she said, “I do.  As my sister said, we are quiet people.  She goes out so little that it is almost not at all, and when I go it has nearly always to be with some one else.  And then, you know that while Alice and I are originally New Yorkers, we have only been back here for two or three years.  Most of the people, really, to whose houses we go are those who knew my father.  But,” she added, “it is a comfort not to be carrying about a traveling bag in one hand and a weight of responsibility in the other.”

“I should think,” said John, laughing, “that your maid might have taken the bag, even if she couldn’t carry your responsibilities.”

“No,” she said, joining in his laugh, “that particular bag was too precious, and Eliza was one of my most serious responsibilities.  She had to be looked after like the luggage, and I used to wish at times that she could be labeled and go in the van.  How has it been with you since your return? and,” as she separated a needleful of silk from what seemed an inextricable tangle, “if I may ask, what have you been doing?  I was recalling,” she added, putting the silk into the needle, “some things you said to me on the Altruria.  Do you remember?”

“Perfectly,” said John.  “I think I remember every word said on both sides, and I have thought very often of some things you said to me.  In fact, they had more influence upon my mind than you imagined.”

She turned her work so that the light would fall a little more directly upon it.

“Really?” she asked.  “In what way?”

“You put in a drop or two that crystallized the whole solution,” he answered.  She looked up at him inquiringly.

“Yes,” he said, “I always knew that I should have to stop drifting some time, but there never seemed to be any particular time.  Some things you said to me set the time.  I am under ‘full steam a-head’ at present.  Behold in me,” he exclaimed, touching his breast, “the future chief of the Supreme Court of the United States, of whom you shall say some time in the next brief interval of forty years or so, ’I knew him as a young man, and one for whom no one would have predicted such eminence!’ and perhaps you will add, ‘It was largely owing to me.’”