No More Learning

Every Sunday morning--his letter-writing time--Sherman looked at his
uncompleted letter. Gradually it became plain to him he could not
finish it. It had never seemed to him he had more than friendship
for Mary Carton, yet somehow it was not possible to tell her of this
love-affair.

The more his betrothed troubled him the more he thought about the
unfinished letter. He was a man standing at the cross roads.

Whenever the wind blew from the south he remembered his friend, for
that is the wind that fills the heart with memory.

One Sunday he removed the dust from the face of the letter almost
reverently, as though it were the dust from the wheels of destiny. But
the letter remained unfinished.


IX

One Wednesday in June Sherman arrived home an hour earlier than
usual from his office, as his wont was the first Wednesday in every
month, on which day his mother was at home to her friends. They had
not many callers. To-day there was no one as yet but a badly-dressed
old lady his mother had picked up he knew not where. She had been
looking at his photograph album, and recalling names and dates
from her own prosperous times. As she went out Miss Leland came in.
She gave the old lady in passing a critical look that made the poor
creature very conscious of a threadbare mantle, and went over to Mrs.
Sherman, holding out both hands.
Sherman, who knew all his mother's
peculiarities, noticed on her side a slight coldness; perhaps she did
not altogether like this beautiful dragon-fly.

'I have come,' said Miss Leland, 'to tell John that he must learn to
paint. Music and society are not enough. There is nothing like art to
give refinement. ' Then turning to John Sherman--'My dear, I will make
you quite different. You are a dreadful barbarian, you know. '

'What ails me, Margaret? '

'Just look at that necktie! Nothing shows a man's cultivation like
his necktie! Then your reading! You never read anything but old books
nobody wants to talk about. I will lend you three everyone has read
this month. You really must acquire small talk and change your necktie. '

Presently she noticed the photograph-book lying open on a chair.

'Oh! ' she cried, 'I must have another look at John's beauties.