“Blanche Percy—old enough to be my grandmother,” Herbert answered contemptuously, as he turned on his heel and walked away, declaring he didn’t care for a hundred Blanche Percys and Fred Lansings. “I have had him dinged into my ears as a model to imitate ever since I can remember,” he said to himself as he went rapidly down the street in the direction of the plaid dress and red jacket. And yet in his heart he had a great admiration for his cousin Fred, who was six years his senior, and every way his equal in money and position and pedigree, if indeed he was not his superior. His mother was a White, with all the prestige of the White lineage, while on the Lansing side was a long line of judges and governors and bishops, and two generals, both in the Confederate army. One of them was Fred’s father, who was a Virginian, and had been killed at Gettysburg. Judge White was very proud of his connection with the Lansings and very proud of his nephew Fred, who had been to college, and travelled round the world, and carried himself as if he had in his veins the blood of a hundred kings. He had not been often in Merivale, and it was two or three years since Herbert last saw him, in Washington, where his mother had lived for some time, and where her house was a resort for the best society in that cosmopolitan city. But he was coming now, and Herbert felt a thrill of pride as he thought of showing off his distinguished relatives to the plain people of Merivale. “I wonder what he will think of Louie, and what she will think of him, and what father meant about Mr. Grey’s record,” he said to himself, as he turned a corner and met the girl face to face. “Hallo,” he said, and she replied, “Hallo,” as if they were talking through a telephone; and then, unmindful of his father’s orders that he should let the Grey girl alone, Herbert continued: “Come on down to the river. I have a lot to tell you.” It did not take them long to reach the river, and the boat which Herbert had named for Louie was soon floating out upon the water, with the two young people in it. “Well, what is the lot you have to tell me?” Louie asked, removing her hat with one hand, and letting the other hang over the side of the boat in the river. Once or twice Herbert had heard insinuations from his father and a few others with regard to Mr. Grey’s career before he came to Merivale, and of the possible way in which he was running his bank and having so much money to spend, and had always been very angry. “I’ll ask Louie some time,” he had thought, but had never brought himself to do it until now, when his father’s hints were fresh in his mind. It was rather an awkward thing to do, and he hesitated a moment before he began: “What did your father do before he came to Merivale?” It was a strange question, and Louie looked her surprise as she replied, “Do you mean, how did he get his living?” “Why, yes, I guess that is what I mean. Was he a banker, or merchant, or what?”