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 minds to go back to their old homes and find just a few white-headed rheumatickers potterin around, an' the grass growing over everything as though it was a molderin' graveyard that nobody iver walked in, and sorra sign of life annyway you look up and down the street."

J. M.'s mind flew back to the summer home of the president of Middletown. "Good gracious," he exclaimed, "you're right!"

Mrs. McCartey did not take in to the full this compliment, her mind being suddenly diverted by the appearance of a tall figure at the door of the farther wing of the house. "Say, Uncle Jerry," she said, lowering her voice, "Stefan Petrofsky asked me the other day if I thought you would let him talk to you about Ivan some evening?"

"Why, who are they, anyhow?" asked J. M. "I've often wondered why they kept themselves so separate from the rest of us." As he spoke he noticed the turn of his phrase and almost laughed aloud.

"Petrofsky's wife, poor thing, died since they come here, and now there's only Stefan, he's the father, and Ivan, he's the boy. He's awful smart they say, and Stefan, he's about kilt himself to get the boy through the high school. He graduated this spring and now Stefan he says he wants him to get some more education. He says their family, back in Russia, was real gentry and he wants Ivan to learn a lot so that he can help the poor Roosians who come here to do the right thing by the government"

"What?" asked J. M. "I don't seem to catch his idea."

"Well, no more do I, sorra bit," confessed Mrs.