“You don’t know one note from another, my dear,” said his wife.

“I know the ‘Washington Post.’”

“And don’t you call that American?”

“Yes, if Sousa is an American name; I should have thought it was Portuguese.”

“Now that sounds a little too much like General Triscoe’s pessimism,” said Mrs. March; and she added:  “But whether we have any national melodies or not, we don’t poke women out in the rain and keep them soaking!”

“No, we certainly don’t,” he assented, with such a well-studied effect of yielding to superior logic that Mrs. Adding screamed for joy.

The boy had stolen out of the room, and he said, “I hope Rose isn’t acting on my suggestion?”

“I hate to have you tease him, dearest,” his wife interposed.

“Oh, no,” the mother said, laughing still, but with a note of tenderness in her laugh, which dropped at last to a sigh.  “He’s too much afraid of lese-majesty, for that.  But I dare say he couldn’t stand the sight.  He’s queer.”

“He’s beautiful!” said Mrs. March.

“He’s good,” the mother admitted.  “As good as the day’s long.  He’s never given me a moment’s trouble—­but he troubles me.  If you can understand!”

“Oh, I do understand!” Mrs. March returned.  “By his innocence, you mean.  That is the worst of children.  Their innocence breaks our hearts and makes us feel ourselves such dreadful old things.”

“His innocence, yes,” pursued Mrs. Adding, “and his ideals.”  She began to laugh again.  “He may have gone off for a season of meditation and prayer over the misbehavior of these bicyclers.  His mind is turning that way a good deal lately.  It’s only fair to tell you, Mr. March, that he seems to be giving up his notion of being an editor.  You mustn’t be disappointed.”

“I shall be sorry,” said the editor.  “But now that you mention it, I think I have noticed that Rose seems rather more indifferent to periodical literature.  I supposed he might simply have exhausted his questions—­or my answers.”

“No; it goes deeper than that.  I think it’s Europe that’s turned his mind in the direction of reform.  At any rate he thinks now he will be a reformer.”

“Really!  What kind of one?  Not religious, I hope?”

“No.  His reform has a religious basis, but its objects are social.  I don’t make it out, exactly; but I shall, as soon as Rose does.  He tells me everything, and sometimes I don’t feel equal to it, spiritually or even intellectually.”

“Don’t laugh at him, Mrs. Adding!” Mrs. March entreated.

“Oh, he doesn’t mind my laughing,” said the mother, gayly.  Rose came shyly back into the room, and she said, “Well, did you rebuke those bad bicyclers?” and she laughed again.

“They’re only a custom, too, Rose,”, said March, tenderly.  “Like the man resting while the women worked, and the Emperor, and all the rest of it.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” the boy returned.