At home he had two subjects, both subdivided. One was Henry Daniel, his growth, his wit, and his precocity; and the other was Ornaby Addition, its present magnificence and prospective splendour. “And the queer thing is,” Harlan told Martha Shelby, “he believes every word of it. He actually still believes he’s making a success of that dreadful place. Isn’t it strange?” But Martha said that she knew something stranger, and when he asked her what it was, she answered: “Why, it’s your still believing he _isn’t_ making a success of the ‘dreadful place.’” CHAPTER XIX HARLAN laughed ruefully and told her that time, tide, and travel failed to alter her. “You don’t change as much as—as much as”—he looked about him for a comparison, and found one ready to hand in the material of which the Shelbys’ veranda was made. “You don’t change as much as this Western limestone does. It’s made of stone, too, but years and weather take its edges off and give it the look of being not so hard as it used to be.” Not defending herself from the criticism, she gazed thoughtfully at Harlan as he sat fanning himself with his straw hat—he was warm and flushed after their walk on this hot June morning—then she turned her eyes again to the wide lawn stretching before her down to the National Avenue sidewalk. Looking out from the shade of the veranda, her eyes needed the shelter of the curved fingers of her hand, a protection she gave them, resting her elbow on the stone railing beside her. The trimmed grass of the lawn was a blazing green, seen waveringly through visible pulsations of the heated air; the fountain swan, still diligent under every discouragement, sprayed forth no skyward rainbow mists, but ejected a limpid rod of water of so brief an uplift that the bird seemed to carry in his throat the curved tip of a shepherd’s crook made of glass. The asphalt street, beyond the shade of its bordering maples, lay steaming and smelled of tar;—drooping bicyclists rode there, tinkling their little bells for a right of way. Surreys and phaetons gave them courteous passage, and frequently a swifter, noisier vehicle went by, grinding, squawking, and leaving blue oil-smoke on the air.