“Do you know, I have been a busy man,” he said at last, “but there was nothing in it all that I care to think over now. And to-day, for the first time, that seemed to me strange. It was shown to me—that is, I saw it was strange. We have only a few years left, and you will let me be somewhat near you while they pass. Isn't that enough? It seems a little vague. Well, then, yes. I thought of it that way, as you say. Do you mind my thinking of it that way?”
Miss Lucia's eyes grew a little tearful, but she managed to hide it by settling her glasses. Seventy-five years in a small town make the opinions of one's neighbors part of the structure of existence. It was bitter, the thought that Main Street tacitly patronized her.
“Why, no, I don't mind.”
She dropped her knitting and laughed suddenly.
“I think, John,” she said, “that I missed marrying a very nice man.”
Mr. Solley's glasses fell off with surprise. He put them on again and chuckled to himself.
“My father used to call me a—hem—a fool. He used to state things more accurately than you did.”
After all, there was no other institute like Wimberton's. The standards of other places were no measure for our conduct, and the fact that such things were not seen elsewhere was a flattering reason why they should be seen in Wimberton; namely, only five beneficiaries, and one of them a rich man and a trustee. It was singular, but it suited Wimberton to be singular. One thing was plain to all, that if Mr. Solley was a beneficiary, then to be a beneficiary was a dignified, well-bred, and suitable thing. But one thing was not plain to all, why he chose to be a beneficiary. Babbie Cutting went up to the Institute, and coming back, wept for pure sentiment in her white-curtained room, with the picture on the wall of Sir Lancelot riding down by the whirling river, the island, and the gray-walled castle of Shalott.
I remember well the great ball and reception that Mr. Solley gave at the Institute to celebrate his entry, and how we all paid our respects to the five beneficiaries, four old men, who were gracious, but patronizing,—one with gold eye-glasses and gold-headed cane,—and Miss Lucia, with the rolled curls over her ears. The Institute, from that time on, looked down on Main Street with a different air, and never lost its advantage. It seemed to many that the second Solley had refounded it for one of those whims that are ornamental in the rich. Babbie Cutting said to her heart, “He refounded it for Miss Lucia.”
There was nowhere in Wimberton such dignified society as at the Institute. Even so that the last visitor of all seemed only to come by invitation, and to pay his respects with proper ceremony: “Sir, or madam, I hope it is not an inconvenient time,” or similar phrase.