“I hope your daughter, Mrs. Benson, was not tired out with the rather long voyage today.”

“Not a mite.  I guess she enjoyed it.  She don’t seem to enjoy most things.  She’s got everything heart can wish at home.  I don’t know how it is.  I was tellin’ pa, Mr. Benson, today that girls ain’t what they used to be in my time.  Takes more to satisfy ’em.  Now my daughter, if I say it as shouldn’t, Mr. King, there ain’t a better appearin,’ nor smarter, nor more dutiful girl anywhere—­well, I just couldn’t live without her; and she’s had the best schools in the East and Europe; done all Europe and Rome and Italy; and after all, somehow, she don’t seem contented in Cyrusville—­that’s where we live in Ohio—­one of the smartest places in the state; grown right up to be a city since we was married.  She never says anything, but I can see.  And we haven’t spared anything on our house.  And society—­there’s a great deal more society than I ever had.”

Mr. King might have been astonished at this outpouring if he had not observed that it is precisely in hotels and to entire strangers that some people are apt to talk with less reserve than to intimate friends.

“I’ve no doubt,” he said, “you have a lovely home in Cyrusville.”

“Well, I guess it’s got all the improvements.  Pa, Mr. Benson, said that he didn’t know of anything that had been left out, and we had a man up from Cincinnati, who did all the furnishing before Irene came home.”

“Perhaps your daughter would have preferred to furnish it herself?”

“Mebbe so.  She said it was splendid, but it looked like somebody else’s house.  She says the queerest things sometimes.  I told Mr. Benson that I thought it would be a good thing to go away from home a little while and travel round.  I’ve never been away much except in New York, where Mr. Benson has business a good deal.  We’ve been in Washington this winter.”

“Are you going farther south?”

“Yes; we calculate to go down to the New Orleans Centennial.  Pa wants to see the Exposition, and Irene wants to see what the South looks like, and so do I. I suppose it’s perfectly safe now, so long after the war?”

“Oh, I should say so.”

“That’s what Mr. Benson says.  He says it’s all nonsense the talk about what the South ’ll do now the Democrats are in.  He says the South wants to make money, and wants the country prosperous as much as anybody.  Yes, we are going to take a regular tour all summer round to the different places where people go.  Irene calls it a pilgrimage to the holy places of America.  Pa thinks we’ll get enough of it, and he’s determined we shall have enough of it for once.  I suppose we shall.  I like to travel, but I haven’t seen any place better than Cyrusville yet.”

As Irene did not make her appearance, Mr. King tore himself away from this interesting conversation and strolled about the parlors, made engagements to take early coffee at the fort, to go to church with Mrs. Cortlandt and her friends, and afterwards to drive over to Hampton and see the copper and other colored schools, talked a little politics over a late cigar, and then went to bed, rather curious to see if the eyes that Mrs. Cortlandt regarded as so dangerous would appear to him in the darkness.