It was at the end of Lottie's senior year that Mrs. Payson became aware of this young man whose swart face seemed always to be just appearing or disappearing around the corner with Lottie either smiling in greeting or waving a farewell. End-of-the-year school festivities were accountable for this. Then, too, Belle must have registered some objection. When next young Adler appeared at the Prairie Avenue house it was Mrs. Payson who sailed down the rather faded green river of the parlor carpet. "How do you do," said Mrs. Payson; her glance said, "What are you doing here, in this house?" Rutherford Hayes Adler wanted to get up from the chair into which his lank length was doubled. He knew he should get up. But a hideous shyness kept him there--bound him with iron bands. When finally, with a desperate effort, he broke them and stumbled to his feet it was too late. Mrs. Payson had seated herself--if being seated can describe the impermanent position which she now assumed on the extreme edge of the stiffest of the stiff parlor chairs. The sallow, skinny little Carrie Thrift had mellowed--no, that word won't do--had developed into an erect, dignified, white-haired woman of rather imposing mien. The white hair, in particular, was misleadingly softening. "May I ask your father's name?" she said. Just that. The boy had heard that tone used many times in the past nineteen hundred years. "Adler," he replied. "Yes, I know. But his first name. What is his first name, please?" "His first name was Abraham--Abraham I. Adler. The I stands for Isaac." "Abraham--Isaac--Adler," repeated Mrs. Payson. As she uttered the words they were an opprobrium. "Your father's name was Isaac too, wasn't it?" said the boy. "His name was Isaac Thrift." An altogether different kind of Isaac, you would have thought. No relation to the gentleman in the Bible. A New England Isaac not to be confused with the Levantine of that name. "Yes. I remember I used to hear my grandfather speak of him." "Indeed! In what connection, may I ask?" "Why, he came to Chicago in '39, just about the time your father came, I imagine. They were young men together. Grandfather was an old settler." Mrs. Payson's eyebrows doubted it. "I don't remember ever having seen him mentioned in books on early Chicago." "You wouldn't," said Adler; "he isn't." "And why not?" "Jew," said Rutherford Hayes, pleasantly, and laconically. Mrs. Payson stood up. So did the boy. He had no difficulty in rising now. No self-consciousness, no awkwardness. There was about him suddenly a fluid grace, an easy muscular rhythm. "Of course, grandfather has been dead a good many years now," he went on politely, "and father, too." "I'm afraid Lottie won't be able to go this evening," Mrs. Payson said. "She has been going out too much. It is bad for her school work. Young girls nowadays----"