Do you want more detailed biographies, or is your acquaintance sufficiently extended? The owls on the _Herald_ building are staring knowingly at the moon, who is coquettishly hiding her face behind a cloud. Mr. Greeley has fallen asleep in his chair, facing Mr. Dodge, after listening to that eternal long temperance speech which is never ended. I don't think Broadway is amusing after midnight.
Let's go to Brown's and have some deviled kidneys and a mug of Bass.
Miss Herron guided the fat horses into the byroad with the manner of a navigating officer on the bridge of a liner. Not even after they were straightened out, and dropped their quickened gait to the usual comfortable trot, did she unclose her lips or take her gray eyes from her course.
"Is anything coming behind us, Lucy?" This to the young girl beside her.
"No, Cousin Agatha. He kept straight on."
"Well, that's a mercy." For the first time she leaned back a little. "But I wonder that John Arnold so much as dreamed of trying to pass me."
"You drive so splendidly," replied the girl, drooping her pretty head so that the big white hat quite shaded her face. "The way you beat Mr. Arnold was fine. He looked so silly when we passed him. You're so brave and--and skillful. It makes one feel so safe to be with you."
"Of course I've driven all my life," Miss Herron admitted. "Your grand-uncle, the judge, my dear, always insisted that driving was part of a gentlewoman's education, like household management or a knowledge of English history. A bit of a race is only amusing, but what with these automobiles, there's no pleasure in horses at all nowadays."
"Dangerous! They should not be allowed on the roads at all. Any more than--than drunken men. The comparison somehow pleases me, Lucy. Did you observe it?"
"Yes, yes, Cousin Agatha." The girl turned to the older lady a face very young and fair and eyes that shone. "I was laughing at it all the time."
It was a great pleasure, so Miss Herron assured all her friends, to feel sure that her little cousin was for a few months at least to be brought under the influence which had shaped the lives of her New England forebears. For the child to live in Herron House, to grow in knowledge of her race, so splendidly patriotic, so consistently rich and cultivated from the days when Barham was part of a colony, seemed to the proud old lady a real necessity for Lucy. She must never forget that she was a New England gentlewoman; she must learn the traditions, stiffen with the pride of her race. And because these things might grow dim or be clean forgotten, did she spend all her days in the noisy, extravagant city or the lazy places abroad.