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The picture of the Emerson’s tenants which Dade drew struck a pang in Emily’s sociological conscience. She pitied the girl more for her inability to estimate the evils of a system which left her free to wander over the earth seeking that exercise which her clamoring muscles demanded, while those upon whose labors she lived had to exercise more than their overwrought muscles required than she did for the remote prospect of her being doomed to labor on the corn lands of Polk County.

“I’d go down to Zimmerman’s saloon and bowl, if it wouldn’t shock you all to death. But tell me, how do you feel about it?”

“About what—your need of exercise?”

“Mon Dieu, no—about the terrible exposé of that interesting protégé of yours? On ne pourrait le croire—c’est affreux!”

“Well, no,” Emily said, with a woeful laugh, “if I understand your French.”

“What!” exclaimed the girl. “I thought you were so deeply interested in him. Haven’t you worked hard to give him some sort of social form, getting him to dawnces and all that sort of thing?”