Big Poker Site hazard of new fortunes 69

feet like they do in the Testament. My uncle was one. He raised me." "I guess pretty much everybodys a Beardy Man nowadays, if he aint a Dunkard!" Miss Mela looked round for applause of her sally, but March was saying to his wife: "Its a Pennsylvania German sect, I believe--something like the Quakers. I used to see them when I was a boy." "Arent they something like the Mennists?" asked Mrs. Mandel. "Theyre good people," said the old woman, "and the world d be a heap better off if there was more like em." Her son came in and laid a soft shawl over her shoulders before he shook hands with the visitors. "I am glad you found your way here," he said to them. Christine, who had been bending forward over her fan, now lifted herself up with a sigh and leaned back in her chair. "Im sorry my father isnt here," said the young man to Mrs. March. "Hes never met you yet?" "No; and I should like to see him. We hear a great deal about your father, you know, from Mr. Fulkerson." "Oh, I hope you dont believe everything Mr. Fulkerson says about people," Mela cried. "Hes the greatest person for carrying on when he gets going I ever saw. It makes Christine just as mad when him and mother gets to talking about religion; she says she knows he dont care anything more about it than the man in the moon. I reckon he dont try it on much with father." "Your fawther aint ever been a perfessor," her mother interposed; "but hes always been a good church-goin man." "Not since we come to New York," retorted the girl. "Hes been all broke up since he come to New York," said the old woman, with an aggrieved look. Mrs. Mandel attempted a diversion. "Have you heard any of our great New York preachers yet, Mrs. March?" "No, I havent," Mrs. March admitted; and she tried to imply by her candid tone that she intended to begin hearing them the very next Sunday. "There are a great many things here," said Conrad, "to take your thoughts off the preaching that you hear in most of the churches. I think the city itself is preaching the best sermon all the time." "I dont know that I understand you," said March. Mela answered for him. "Oh, Conrad has got a lot of notions that nobody can understand. You ought to see the church he goes to when he does go. Id about as lief go to a Catholic church myself; I dont see a bit o difference. Hes the greatest crony with one of their preachers; he dresses just like a priest, and he says he is a priest." She laughed for enjoyment of the fact, and her brother cast down his eyes. Mrs. March, in her turn, tried to take from it the personal tone which the talk was always assuming. "Have you been to the fall exhibition?" she asked Christine; and the girl drew herself up out of the abstraction she seemed sunk in. "The exhibition?" She looked at Mrs. Mandel. "The pictures of the Academy, you know," Mrs. Mandel explained. "Where I wanted you to go the day you had your dress tried on." "No; we havent been yet. Is it good?" She had turned to Mrs. March again. "I believe the fall exhibitions are never so good as the spring ones. But there are some good pictures." "I dont believe I care much about pictures," said Christine. "I dont understand them." "Ah, thats no excuse for not caring about them," said March, lightly. "The painters themselves dont, half the time." The girl looked at him with that glance at once defiant and appealing, insolent and anxious, which he had noticed before, especially when she stole it toward himself and his wife during her sisters babble. In the light of Fulkersons history of the family, its origin and its ambition, he interpreted it to mean a sense of her sisters folly and an ignorant will to override his opinion of anything incongruous in themselves and their surroundings. He said to himself that she was deathly proud--too proud to try to palliate anything, but capable of anything that would put others under her feet. Her eyes seemed hopelessly to question his wifes social quality, and he fancied, with not unkindly interest, the inexperienced girls doubt whether to treat them with much or little respect. He lost himself in fancies about her and her ideals, necessarily sordid, of her possibilities of suffering, of the triumphs and disappointments before

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