showers rise over the top
of a bunker. From where they stood the player seemed to be inventing a
new kind of golf, to be played without a ball. A pale mist hung over the
scene.

"I know just what he's saying," Patricia told Wilbur.

"Shame on you!" said he, and they both laughed, after which Patricia
glanced at him oftener.

It should be said that he was now arrayed as Winona would have him, in
summer sports attire of careless but expensive appearance, including a
silk shirt alleged by the maker to be snappy, and a cap of real
character. The instinct of the male for noticeable plumage had at last
worked the reform that not all of Winona's pleading had sufficed for.
Wilbur Cowan at the moment might, but for his excellent golf, have been
mistaken for a genuine Whipple.

Merle's homilies continued after each shot. He subjected his own drives
to a masterly analysis, and strove to incite his brother to correct
form, illustrating this for his instruction with practice swings that
were marvels of nicety, and learnedly quoting Braid and Vardon.

It was after one of these informative intervals, succeeding a
brilliantly topped drive by the lecturer, that Patricia Whipple, full in
the flooding current of Merle's discourse, turned her speckled face
aside and flagrantly winked a greenish eye at Wilbur Cowan; whereupon
Wilbur Cowan winked his own left eye, that one being farthest from the
speaker. The latter, having concluded his remarks for the moment, went
to find his ball, and the two walked on.

"He just ought to be taken down," suggested Patricia, malevolently.

"Think so?" demanded Wilbur.

"Know so!" declared the girl. "'Tisn't only golf. He's that way about
everything--telling people things--how to do it and everything. Only no
one at our house dares come down on him. Harvey D. and Ella and even
grandfather--they all jump through hoops for him, the cowards! I give
him a jolt now and then, but I get talked to for it."

"The boy needs some golf talk--he certainly does," conceded the other.

"Too bad you're afraid to do it," Patricia said, resignedly.

She looked sadly away, then quickly back at him to see if it had taken.
She thought it hadn't. He was merely looking as if he also considered it
too bad. But on the next tee he astonishingly asserted himself
as---comparatively--a golfing expert. He wasn't going to have this
splendid brother, truly his brother for all the change of name, making a
fool of himself before