“I like reading,” mused Mrs. Dawson, as she mechanically turned the leaves of “Degeneration.” “I think it cultivates the observation.” “I feel sometimes that it would be more advisable to cultivate blindness than observation,” answered Tommy. He was becoming reckless and got up to go. Mrs. Dawson’s lips parted to say something, but Dickey broke in with,-- “I wish one of you fellows would kindly stop at the stable and send round a cab. It is too late for my mother to go back to town in the car.” A protest from Mrs. Dawson seemed imminent, but she apparently thought better of it and returned to the book. The getting away was difficult, but not nearly so difficult as staying any longer would have been. They chirped “goodbyes,” and “get well soons,” and “so glad to have met yous,” galore, and Bigelow felt waxing within him a new and passionate love for his own family, who were all decently dead. Then they echoed off through a long corridor. After they had gone Mrs. Dawson said nothing for several minutes, and Dickey made a noise with the fire. “They’re queer young men,” she finally reflected aloud. “Do you like them very much, Richard?” “Oh, yes,” answered Dickey, indifferently, “you get to like people you see a great deal, I imagine.” He sat on the arm of his mother’s chair and held one of his mother’s hands and kissed it. “I wonder if you get to _dis_like people you _don’t_ see much of,” said Mrs. Dawson. She was turning the leaves of her book without stopping to look at them. “Not if you ever truly loved them,” answered Dickey, tenderly drawing nearer to her and laying his cheek against hers. He was almost overdoing the thing. “Not if you ever truly loved them, I suppose,” thoughtfully repeated his mother with more intelligence than Dickey had ever given her credit for. Then she began to turn the leaves of the book all over again. WOLCOTT THE MAGNIFICENT I In some way or other it came to the notice of Barrows, the Recording Secretary, that Ernest McGaw was literally starving. The Secretary, being a person of appreciation, immediately gave the man food. “I’m a horribly busy creature,” he said to McGaw; “but if you’ll come round to dinner with me at the Colonial Club this evening, we can talk about things.” Of course McGaw went and dined--for the first time in months; for two weeks he had been keeping himself half alive on oatmeal that he cooked in a shallow tin apparatus, over the lamp he studied by.