"Oh, didn't they, though!" cried Adrian, sending a glance of thanks to counteract his contradiction. "They _finished_ things. The temple wasn't complete till they had swept all the marble chips off the back stoop, and had kind of curry-combed down the front yard, and had----" "'Sh,'sh!" said Medora. Abner looked about, more puzzled than offended. "Let's have some music, before our breasts get too savage," said the girl, starting up. Bond followed with the rest. "I'll stick to my regular field," he said to Clytie, as he thrust his crumpled-up manuscript into his pocket. "Griffins, gorgons, hydras, chimeras dire,--but no more cows. I was never meant for a veritist." "Samson is pulling down the temple," observed Clytie. "Crash goes the first pillar. Who will be next?" "He'll be caught in the wreck," said Bond, in a shattered voice. "Just watch and see." XI Medora, long before Abner had learned to work the pedals of the pianola and to wrench any expression from its stops, had banished most of her "rolls" from sight. "Siegfried's Funeral March" was unintelligible to him; the tawdry, meretricious Italian overtures filled him with disgust. In the end the two confined themselves to patriotic airs and old-time domestic ditties. Medora accompanied on her second-best violin (which was kept at the farm) and Abner enjoyed a heart-warming sense of doing his full share in "Tenting Tonight" or "Lily Dale." The girl's parents had advanced far beyond this stage, but willingly relapsed into it now and then for Auld Lang Syne. The final roll wound up with a quick snap. "Well, you haven't told me what you thought of that last chapter," said Abner, putting the roll back in its box. He made no demand on Medora's interest to the exclusion of that of the others, however. His general glance around invited comment from any quarter. He had merely looked at her first. "M--no," said Medora. The girl, a few weeks before, had looked over _The Rod of the Oppressor_. _The Rod's_ force had made itself felt most largely on economics; but in its blossoming it had put forth a few secondary sprigs, and one of these curled over in the direction of domestic life, of marital relation. Abner's chivalry--a chivalry totally guiltless of gallantry--had gone out to the suffering wife doomed to a lifelong yoking with a cruel, coarse-natured husband: must such a yoking _be_ lifelong? he asked earnestly. Was it not right and just and reasonable that she should fly (with or without companion)--nor be too particular over the formalities of her departure? Medora had smiled and shaken her head; but now the question somehow seemed less remote than before. She paused over this bird-like irresponsibility and rather wondered that it should have the power to detain her.