The Paston estate, like the Pierce estate, was situated upon the river, but several miles farther north. To reach it, they drove through the eastern entrance of the Pierce place and through the little Dutch Colonial village of Leydensberg, of which Joel’s father was the mayor and which the Pierce family largely owned.

“It’s a pity Pups never went into politics,” Joel whispered, as they drove through the old leafy village, with its pleasant houses among which a few of the lonely white houses of the Colonial period still remained. “The people around here worship him: he could have anything he wanted if he ran for office.”

It was the first time he had spoken of his father: with a feeling of sharp surprise, the other youth now remembered that he had not seen Mr. Pierce since his arrival: he wondered where he was, but did not ask. He also now remembered that Joel’s references to his father had often been marked by a note of resignation and regret — the tone a person uses when he speaks of someone who has possessed talents and wasted opportunities, and whose life has come to nothing.

Their road led northward from the village: they sped swiftly along a paved highway bordered by trees and fields and woods, by houses here and there, and presently by the solid masonry of a wall that marked the boundaries of another great estate. It was the Paston place, and presently they turned in to an entrance flanked by stone-markers, and began to drive along a road arched by tall leafy trees. Night had come, the moon was not yet well up, but from time to time there was beside the road the gleam of steel, and at times as they passed a cleared space he could plainly see the rail pattern of a tiny railway, complete in all respects — with roadbed, rock-ballast, grades, and cuts, embankments, even tunnels, but all so small in scale that it suggested a gigantic toy more than anything else. He asked what it was and Joel answered:

“It’s Hunter’s railway.”

“HUNTER’S railway?” he asked in a puzzled tone. “But why does he need a railway here? What does he use it for?”

“Oh, he really doesn’t need it for anything,” Joel whispered. “It’s of no use to anyone. He just likes to play with it.”

“Play with it? But — but what is it? . . . Isn’t it a real railway?”

“Yes, of course,” Joel answered, laughing at his astonishment. “It’s really quite marvellous — complete in every way — with tunnels, stations, bridges, signals, round-houses, and everything else a regular railway has. Only everything is on a very small scale — like a toy.”

“But the engine — the locomotive? . . . How does that run? Do you wind it up, as you do a toy, or run it by electricity, or how?”

“Oh, no,” Joel answered. “It’s a regular locomotive — not over two or three feet high, I should say — but runs by steam, just like a real locomotive. . . . It’s really quite a fascinating thing,” he whispered. “You ought to see it some time.”

“But — but how does he run it? Is he able to get into anything as small as that?”

“He can, yes,” said Joel, laughing again. “But usually he just runs along by the side. It’s pretty cramped quarters for a grown man.”

“A grown MAN! . . . Do you mean that Mr. Paston built this little railway for himself?”

“But, of COURSE!” Joel turned, and looked at his friend with a surprised stare. “Whom did you think I was talking about?”

“Why, I— I thought when you said —‘Hunter’ you meant one of his children — a boy — some child in his family who —”

“No, not at all,” Joel whispered, laughing again at the astonished and bewildered look upon his companion’s face. “It may be for a child, but the child is Hunter Paston himself. . . . You see,” he said more quietly and seriously after a brief pause, “he’s crazy about all kinds of machinery — locomotives, aeroplanes, motor-boats, motor-cars, steam-yachts — he loves anything that has an engine in it — he always has been that way since he was a boy — and it’s such a pity, too,” he whispered, in the same regretful tone he had used when speaking of his father —“It’s a shame he was never able to do anything with it. . . . If he hadn’t had all this money, he would have made a SWELL mechanic — he really would.”

But now there was a row of lights through the trees, the murmurous hum of many voices, the glittering shapes of parked machinery. They were approaching the Paston house: it was a rather gloomy-looking mansion of old brown stone, square in shape and immensely solid and imposing in its grimy magnificence, and of that style of architecture which was borrowed from France, but which went through curious and indefinable transformations on the way, so that any native grace and lightness which the style may once have had was lost: it was lumpish, ugly and involved, and somehow looked like one of the children of the New York Post Office.

A broad veranda ran around the house on all four sides, and on the side that faced the river, a large number of the friends and guests of the Paston family were now assembled. Seated on the great lawns that swept away before the house on the riverside there was another larger audience composed of the people of the near-by town, and people employed on the Paston estate and the other great estates in the vicinity.

But over both groups, not only the wealthier and smaller group upon the porch, but the larger one spread out upon the lawn, there was evident a spirit of gay, happy, eager and child-like elation and expectancy that united everyone in a curiously moving and high-hearted way. From the dark sweep and mystery of the lawn there rose the murmur of hundreds of excited and happy voices, all talking at once, and little bursts of laughter, sudden stirs and flurries of eager and mysterious interest.

The same spirit, the same feeling — a spirit and a feeling of plain democracy, warm friendliness, simple, eager hope and expectancy — animated the people on the porch. They were, as a group, fine-looking people: many of the young men were tall, handsome, strong and comely-looking, the girls were lovely, and many of............