Mr. Lyon disclaimed any personal feeling, and the talk drifted into a comparison of English and American politics, mainly with reference to the social factor in English politics, which is so little an element here.

In the midst of the talk Margaret came in.  The brisk walk in the rosy twilight had heightened her color, and given her a glowing expression which her face had not the night before, and a tenderness and softness, an unworldliness, brought from the quiet hour in the church.

          “My lady comes at last,
          Timid and stepping fast,
          And hastening hither,
          Her modest eyes downcast.”

She greeted the stranger with a Puritan undemonstrativeness, and as if not exactly aware of his presence.

“I should like to have gone to vespers if I had known,” said Mr. Lyon, after an embarrassing pause.

“Yes?” asked the girl, still abstractedly.  “The world seems in a vesper mood,” she added, looking out the west windows at the red sky and the evening star.

In truth Nature herself at the moment suggested that talk was an impertinence.  The callers rose to go, with an exchange of neighborhood friendliness and invitations.

“I had no idea,” said Mr. Lyon, as they walked homeward, “what the New World was like.”

III

Mr. Lyon’s invitation was for a week.  Before the end of the week I was called to New York to consult Mr. Henderson in regard to a railway investment in the West, which was turning out more permanent than profitable.  Rodney Henderson—­the name later became very familiar to the public in connection with a certain Congressional investigation—­was a graduate of my own college, a New Hampshire boy, a lawyer by profession, who practiced, as so many American lawyers do, in Wall Street, in political combinations, in Washington, in railways.  He was already known as a rising man.

When I returned Mr. Lyon was still at our house.  I understood that my wife had persuaded him to extend his visit—­a proposal he was little reluctant to fall in with, so interested had he become in studying social life in America.  I could well comprehend this, for we are all making a “study” of something in this age, simple enjoyment being considered an unworthy motive.  I was glad to see that the young Englishman was improving himself, broadening his knowledge of life, and not wasting the golden hours of youth.  Experience is what we all need, and though love or love-making cannot be called a novelty, there is something quite fresh about the study of it in the modern spirit.