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 other kind: the drums and wreaths and acclamations. If I were Mr. Peyton, for instance, I'd much rather win the competition than—than be as disinterested as Mr. Darrow.&quot;

Mrs. Peyton smiled. &quot;I hope you won't tell him so,&quot; she said half seriously. &quot;He is over-stimulated already; and he is so easily influenced by any one who—whose opinion he values.&quot;

She stopped abruptly, hearing herself, with a strange inward shock, reëcho the words which another man's mother had once spoken to her. Miss Verney did not seem to take the allusion to herself, for she continued to fix on Mrs. Peyton a gaze of impartial sympathy.

&quot;But we can't help being interested!&quot; she declared.

&quot;It's very kind of you; but I wish you would all help him to feel that this competition is after all of very little account