A boy on a horse brought her a note that afternoon. She told no one its contents and when Patty asked who sent it, Immy did not answer. RoBards was sure it came from Ernest Chirnside, for the youth never appeared. But RoBards felt no right to ask. Somehow he felt that there was no place for him as a father in Immy’s after-conduct. She returned to her wildness, like a deer that has broken back to the woods and will not be coaxed in again. How could he blame her? What solemn monition could he parrot to a soul that had had such an experience with honesty, such a contact with virtue? Young Chirnside never came to the house. But he was the only youth in the countryside, it seemed, that kept away. Patty tried to curb Immy’s frantic hilarities, but she had such insolence for her pains that she was stricken helpless. Then Immy decided that the country was dull. The young men went back to town, or to their various colleges. Keith went to Columbia College, which was still in Park Place, though plans were afoot for moving it out into the more salubrious rural district of Fiftieth Street and Madison Avenue. Keith met Chirnside on the campus, but he could not force a quarrel without dragging Immy’s name into it. So he let slip the opportunity for punishment, as his father had let slip the occasion for punishing Chalender. Father and son were curiously alike in their passion for secrets. Keith had little interest in the classic studies that made up most of the curriculum. He could not endure Latin and the only thing he found tolerable in Cæsar was the description of the bridge that baffled the other students with its difficulties. He was an engineer by nature. He had never recovered from his ambition to be an hydraulic savior of the city. And it looked as if the town would soon need another redemption. The citizens had treated the Croton as a toy at first. The hydrants were free and the waste was ruinous. This blessing, like the heavenly manna, became contemptible with familiarity. Children made a pastime of sprinkling the yards and the streets. The habit of bathing grew until many were soaking their hides every day. During the winter the householders let the water run all day and all night through the open faucets, to prevent the pipes from freezing. There were twelve thousand people, too, who had water in their houses! Already in 1846 the Commissioners had begun to talk of a costly new reservoir as a necessity. For thirteen days that year the supply had to be shut off while the aqueduct was inspected and leaks repaired. What if another great fire had started? In 1849 the Water Commissioners were dismissed and the Croton Aqueduct Department entrusted with the priesthood of the river god and his elongated temple.