"Mrs. Jared Franklin is well, I hope?" Chase asked, when the last course was reached. He was not fond of nuts or figs, but he was playing his part, according to his conception of it, by eating at intervals one raisin. "Quite well; thanks. I have never known her to be ill," replied Dolly. "Mr. Chase, I am going to suggest something: as mother and my sister-in-law are both Mrs. Jared, and as mother has no burning desire to be called 'old Mrs. Franklin' just yet, why don't you say 'Mrs. G. B.' when you mean the younger matron?" Chase would never have thought of calling either the one or the other a matron, his idea of the word being the female superintendent of a public institution. "G. B.--are those her initials?" he said. "Yes, of course; G. for Genevieve, or Gen, as I used to call her." "And B. for Beatrice; isn't that lovely? Our own names, unfortunately, are very plain--Ruth, Dolly, and Jared; Genevieve has taken pity upon the Jared, and changed it to Jay. Mother, however, actually likes the name Jared. She is weak enough to be proud of the fact that there have been six Jared Franklins in the direct line, from eldest son to father, going back to colonial days. People are _very_ sorry for this delusion of hers; they have told her repeatedly that the colonial period was unimportant. Genevieve, in particular, has often explained to her that modern times are far more interesting." "I guess there isn't much question about that, is there?" said Chase. "No doubt they did the best they could in those old days. But they couldn't do much, you see, because they had nothing to work with, no machinery, no capital, no combinations; they couldn't hear anything until long after it had happened, and they couldn't go anywhere except on horseback. I've always been glad _I_ didn't serve my time then. I guess I should have found it slow." "You must find Asheville rather slow?" remarked Dolly. "It is more than slow, Miss Franklin; it has stopped entirely. But it has great natural advantages--I have been surprised to see how many. I like new enterprises, and I've been thinking about something." Here he paused and ate one more raisin, balancing it for a moment upon the palm of his hand before he swallowed it. "I've been thinking of picking up that railroad at Old Fort and pushing it right through to this place, and on to Tennessee; a branch, later, to tap South Carolina and Georgia. That isn't all, however." He paused again. Then with a glance which rested for a moment on each face, and finally stopped at Mrs. Franklin's, "What do you say," he added, with an hospitable smile, "to my making a big watering-place of your hilly little village?" "_Asheville_ watered? What next!" said Dolly.