“Why, there’s nothing to say about me,” she began in compliance with his gayety, and then she fell helpless from it.
“Well, then, about Tuskingum. I should like to hear about Tuskingum, so much!”
“I suppose we like it because we’ve always lived there. You haven’t been much in the West, have you?”
“Not as much as I hope to be.” He had found that Western people were sometimes sensitive concerning their section and were prepared to resent complacent ignorance of it. “I’ve always thought it must be very interesting.”
“It isn’t,” said the girl. “At least, not like the East. I used to be provoked when the lecturers said anything like that; but when you’ve been to New York you see what they mean.”
“The lecturers?” he queried.
“They always stayed at our house when they lectured in Tuskingum.”
“Ah! Oh yes,” said Breckon, grasping a situation of which he had heard something, chiefly satirical. “Of course. And is your father—is Judge Kenton literary? Excuse me!”
“Only in his history. He’s writing the history of his regiment; or he gets the soldiers to write down all they can remember of the war, and then he puts their stories together.”
“How delightful!” said Breckon. “And I suppose it’s a great pleasure to him.”