"I shall hope to offer something better worth while than travel-sketches," said Abner. "His things will hardly harmonize with mine, I'm afraid; but possibly they will serve as a sort of contrast."
"His things will be slight, of course, but the songs will help him out. Very simple arrangements; people don't care much for anything serious or heavy."
"I shall not show myself a mere frivolous entertainer—a simple filler-in of the leisure moments of the wealthy," said Abner.
Medora banished the violin—and herself. "What do you think of reading?" she asked.
"One or two pieces from my first book, I expect,—Jim McKay's Defeat and Less Than the Beasts, with possibly one of the later chapters in Regeneration."
"M—m," said Medora.
"You don't like Regeneration, I'm afraid; but there's going to be some good stuff in it, let me tell you. People will open their eyes and begin to think. This question of marriage——"
"You will read that part, then?"
"Why not? It's a vital question. It concerns everybody, at all times."
"Yes, it always has—for thousands of years."