“It all proves what I brought you here to see,” Archibald emphasized, “how the gods of yesterday are going to balance the gods of to-day.”

The Admiral chuckled.  “There aren’t any gods of to-day.”

“The gods of to-day are our young men,” Cope flung out, glowingly; “the war has left them with their dreams, and they have got to find a way to make their dreams come true.  And that’s where the old gods will help.  Those fine old men who dreamed, backed their dreams with deeds.  Then for a time we were so busy making money that we forgot their dreams.  And when foreigners came crowding to our shores, we didn’t care whether they were good Americans or not.  All we cared was to have them work in our mills and factories and in our kitchens, and let us alone in our pride of ancestry and pomp of circumstance.  We forgot to show them Bunker Hill and to tell them about the old North Church and Paul Revere and the shot heard ’round the world, and what liberty meant and democracy, and now we’ve got to show them.  I am going to take you around to-morrow, Becky, and pretend you are Olga from Petrograd, and that you are seeing America for the first time.”

Archibald Cope was kindled by fires which gave color to his pale cheeks.  “Will you be—­Olga from Petrograd?”

“I’d love it.”

But the next morning it rained.  “And you can’t, of course, be Olga of Petrograd in the rain.  Bunker Hill must have the sun on it, and the waves of the harbor must be sparkling when I tell you about the tea.”

They decided, therefore, to read aloud “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.”

“Then if it stops raining,” said Archibald, “we’ll step straight out from its pages into the Boston that I want to show you.”

He read well.  Louise sat at a little table sewing a pattern of beads on a green bag.  Becky had some rose-colored knitting.  The Admiral was in his big chair by the fire with his hands folded across his waistcoat and his eyes shut.  The colorful work of the two women, the light of the fire, the glow of the little lamp at Cope’s elbow, the warmth of the red furniture saved the room from dreariness in spite of the rain outside.

“‘It was on the Common,’” read Cope, “’that we were walking.  The mall, or boulevard of our Common, you know, has various branches leading from it in different directions.  One of these runs down from opposite Joy Street southward across the whole length of the Common to Boylston Street.  We called it the long path, and were fond of it.

“’I felt very weak indeed (though of a tolerably robust habit) as we came opposite the head of this path on that morning.  I think I tried to speak twice without making myself distinctly audible.  At last I got out the question, “Will you take the long path with me?” “Certainly,” said the school-mistress, “with much pleasure.”  “Think,” I said, “before you answer:  if you take the long path with me now, I shall interpret it that we are to part no more!” The schoolmistress stepped back with a sudden movement, as if an arrow had struck her.