"Herriott ought to go into politics; don't you think so, Miss Manning?" asked Mr. Hull. "By no means. I prefer he should keep his hands clean." "Senator Kent can tell you, madam, that we do not all dabble in mud or pitch." Mr. Herriott leaned forward, and spoke more quickly than usual. "She is afraid I might not swell the class of distinguished exceptions which you and Senator Kent represent. Aunt Trina, may I trouble you for a second cup of coffee and an extra lump of sugar?" Beatrix had completed her inventory of Eglah's points of attraction, and now, as her eyes rested on the graceful figure daintily gowned in lilac muslin, the result annoyed her. "Miss Kent, has your college training fitted you to believe all the marvellous tales these two wise scholars tell us; as, for instance, that this lovely spot--this suburb of paradise where we are sitting--was once buried for ages under ten thousand feet of glacial ice?" "I am sorry to confess my course of study carried me only far enough to see the border land of a kingdom I never expect to explore. Unless one specializes, four years at college make no experts. You might as well ask a butterfly to classify all the blossoms it hovered over, or measure the depths of glaciers." The professor pushed aside his cup, and looked at her. "And why not? It can teach us infinitely more than its human, club-crazy sisters. My dear Miss Kent, we who are in bonds to science exact great accuracy even in the selection of metaphors, and you will pardon me if I rise to defend the usefulness of butterflies. On top of Mount Washington survives a colony of butterflies found nowhere else south of Arctic snows and ice; descendants of a family which retreated with the great glacier that once overflowed New Hampshire and left only the pinnacle of Mount Washington uncovered. When the _OEneis_ household moved back to Labrador and Greenland, these silk-winged stragglers, flirting in corners, were abandoned by their chaperons, and for thousands of years their progeny have flitted around that stone crest to show us the depth of the glacier." Professor Cleveden adjusted his eye-glasses and moved his chair so as to look straight at Miss Manning, who at once put up her lorgnette to probe his gold spectacles. "Are you an enthusiastic club-woman?" "Why don't you ask me if I approve of perjury, arson, and poisoning?" "My dear madam, did I not hear you last evening quoting the sonorous periods of Mrs. Helen Phaedra Swan Hall, whose mission seems to be the emancipation of her sex from bondage to God as well as to man?" "Oh, no, Mr. Cleveden! It was I who asked Mr. Hull to explain the bill she is trying to have introduced in Congress. Cousin Katrina thinks all such advanced women should be locked up as lunatics, but she is too extreme and hopelessly narrow for this generation, while I like to keep up with the procession. Do tell us about this prophetess."