His disposition was at once genial and vain; he had been so long absent from the familiar faces of the town that his heart warmed to the first townsfolk he saw; but he was also ambitious: he wished to appear on good terms with these women, who were his superiors in social position.
They would not have anything to do with him, which offended him very much; they received his greeting coldly and turned away; they said within themselves that he was an intolerably vulgar little person.
But all her life Zilda Chaplot lived a better and happier woman because she had known him.
VII THE SYNDICATE BABY Some miles above the city of La Motte, the blue Merrian river widens into the Lake of St.Jean.In the Canadian summer the shores of this lake are as pleasant a place for an outing as heart could desire.

The inhabitants of the city build wooden villas there, and spend the long warm days in boats upon the water.

The families that live in these wooden villas do not take boarders; that was the origin of 'The Syndicate.' It consisted of some two dozen bachelors who were obliged to sit upon office stools all day in the hot city.

'If,' said they, 'we could live upon the lake, we could have our morning swim and our evening sail; and the trains would take us in and out of the city.' The one or two uncomfortable hotels of this region were already overcrowded, so these bachelors said to each other--'Go to; we will put our pence together, and build us a boat-house with an upper story, and live therein.' They bought a bit of the beach for a trifle of money.

They built a boat-house, of which the upper half was one long dormitory, with a great balcony at the end over the water which served as kitchen and dining-hall.