He had plenty of thoughts, but it seemed as if he couldn't
fit them into each other. Public speaking had been a Greenstreet
tradition, and if Mrs. Tarrant had been asked whether in her younger
years she had ever supposed she should marry a mesmeric healer, she
would have replied: "Well, I never thought I should marry a gentleman
who would be silent on the platform!" This was her most general
humiliation; it included and exceeded every other, and it was a poor
consolation that Selah possessed as a substitute--his career as a
healer, to speak of none other, was there to prove it--the eloquence of
the hand. The Greenstreets had never set much store on manual activity;
they believed in the influence of the lips. It may be imagined,
therefore, with what exultation, as time went on, Mrs. Tarrant found
herself the mother of an inspired maiden, a young lady from whose lips
eloquence flowed in streams. The Greenstreet tradition would not perish,
and the dry places of her life would, perhaps, be plentifully watered.
It must be added that, of late, this sandy surface had been irrigated,
in moderation, from another source. Since Selah had addicted himself to
the mesmeric mystery, their home had been a little more what the home of
a Greenstreet should be.
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