"Which a handsome house will adorn and make beautiful. We must live somewhere. If we leave California, what better place can we choose than the old home of my son's race, where his name has been honored for generations? In that region he will not be a new man."
"An old one, assuredly, if he remains there. But he will flee from the home of his ancestors. The place is sunk in somnolence; one of those country towns that the world has been glad to forget. Rotting wharves, a few tumbledown warehouses, and three or four streets, shaded by trees so big that even the white houses with their green blinds look gloomy."
"The wharves and warehouses are mine, and are to be pulled down. I like the shady streets and the white houses."
"And their inmates?" The philosopher shuddered.
"The Claghorn paragon, Miss Achsah, lives in one of them."
"Ah, Miss Achsah! You do not know Miss Achsah; she superintended my boyhood."
"The result is a tribute to her excellence."
The gentleman bowed. "She is a good woman—the personification of Roman virtue, adorned with the graces of Calvinism—but, my dear Cousin" (the lady was his aunt, if anything), "I put it to you. Is not personified virtue most admirable at a distance?"
The lady laughed. "Possibly. But I do not expect to be reduced to virtuous society only, even if I am fortunate enough to prove acceptable in the eyes of Miss Claghorn. Our Professor assures me that the Hampton circle is most agreeable; and Hampton and Easthampton are practically one."
"And what a one!" The philosopher shrugged his shoulders in true Gallic fashion. "Madame, Hampton is the home of theology—and such theology! It is filled with musty professors, their musty wives and awkward and conceited boys, in training to become awkward and conceited men. Remember, I was one of the horde and know whereof I speak. Think seriously, my dear Cousin, before you expose so beautiful a girl as Mademoiselle Paula, not to speak of yourself, to such an environment."