After he had left the room he returned, drawing from the pocket of his rather dandyfied light overcoat three small packages, which he laid on a side-table. "This is for Janey, and this for Jack, and this for Marjorie," he said. "I told them they would find them there in the morning." "Thank you," answered Bertha, as if the proceeding was one to which she was well accustomed. When he was fairly gone Richard Amory broke into a half laugh. "What a queer fellow he is!" he said. Bertha returned to her place by the fire, taking from the mantel a little screen of peacock feathers and shading her face with it. "Do you know," she said, "that he rarely leaves the house without one of us making that remark, and yet it always has an illusive air of being entirely new." "Well," remarked Richard, "he is a queer fellow, and there's no denying it. Imagine a fellow like that coolly rambling about with neat packages of bonbons in his fastidious overcoat pocket, to be bestowed on children without any particular claim on him. Why does he do it?" "It doesn't exactly arise from enthusiasm awakened by their infant charms," said Bertha, "and he never professed that it did." "But he must care for them a little," returned Richard. "The fact is that you don't know what he cares for," said Bertha, "and it is rather one of his fascinations. I suppose that is really what we mean by saying he is a queer fellow." "At all events," said Richard, amiably, "he is a nice fellow, and one can manage to subsist on that. All I complain of is that he hasn't any object. A man ought to have an object--two or three, if he likes." "He doesn't like," said Bertha, "for he certainly hasn't an object--though, after all, that belongs to his mode of life." "I should like," said Tredennis, "to know something of the mode of life of a man who hasn't an object." "You will gain a good deal of information on the subject if you remain long in Washington," answered Bertha. "We generally have either too many objects or none at all. If it is not your object to get into the White House, or the Cabinet, or somewhere else, it is probably your fate to be installed in a 'department;' and, as you cannot hope to retain your position through any particular circumspectness or fitness for it, you have not any object left you." "The fact is," said Richard, "it would have been a great deal better for Larry if he had stayed where he was and fought it out." "The fact is," said Bertha, "it would be a great deal better for nine out of ten of the rest if they stayed where they were. And when Larry came he did not come under specially exhilarating circumstances, and just then I suppose it seemed to him that the rest of his life was not worth much to him." "It has struck me," said Richard, reflectively, "that he had a blow of some sort about that time,--something apart from the loss of his fortune. I am not sure but that I once heard some wandering rumor of there being a young woman somewhere"--