"It wouldn't do you any harm to take a run up into Virginia yourself, once in a while," he said. "You have been losing ground since the heat set in, and we can't submit to that. We need your muscular development in its highest form, as an example to our modern deterioration. Kill two birds with one stone when you have a day's leisure,--go and see Bertha and the children, and lay in a new supply of that delightful robustness we envy and admire." "I should be glad to see Bertha," said Tredennis. "She would be glad to see you," Richard answered. "And, while I am away, it will be a relief to me to feel that she has you to call upon in case of need. The professor--dear old fellow--is not as strong as he was. And you--as I said before--one naturally takes the liberty of relying upon your silent substantiality." "Thank you," said Tredennis. "If it is a matter of avoirdupois"---- Richard turned quickly to look at him. "Ah, no," he said, "not that; though, being human, we respect the avoirdupois. It's something else, you know. Upon my word, I can't exactly say what, but something which makes a man feel instinctively that he can shift his responsibilities upon you and they will be in good hands. Perhaps it is not an enviable quality in one's self, after all. Here am I, you see, shifting Bertha and the children off on your shoulders. "If I can be of any use to Bertha and the children why not?" said Tredennis, tersely. "Oh, but one might also say 'Why?'" returned Richard. "We haven't any claim on you, really, and yet we do it, or, rather, _I_ do it, which speaks all the more strongly for your generosity and trustworthiness." "And you will be away"--Tredennis began. "Two or three weeks. It might be more, but I think not. We separate here, I think, as I am going to drop in on Planefield. Good-night, and thanks." "Good-night," responded Tredennis, and they shook hands and parted. CHAPTER XV. During the hot days and nights of the next few weeks Tredennis found life rather a dreary affair. Gradually the familiar faces he met on the avenue became fewer and fewer; the houses he knew one after another assumed their air of summer desertion, offering as their only evidences of life an occasional colored servant sunning him or herself on the steps; the crowds of nursery-maids, with their charges, thinned out in the parks, and the freshness of the leaves was lost under a coating of dust, while the countenances of those for whom there was no prospect of relief expressed either a languid sense of injury or the patience of despair. "But, after all," Tredennis said, on two or three occasions, as he sat in one of the parks in the evening,--"after all, I suppose most of them have--an object," adding the last two words with a faint smile.