old creature around
the house.

Mrs. Parkes was absorbed in her reflections when the sound of a
well-known voice made her look up.

"Hallo, ma! Whatever are you doing that for? Where's Hilda?"

An oldish-looking young man, a pipe in his mouth, newspaper in his hand,
stood in the doorway looking at her.

Mrs. Parkes smiled at her son:

"There's no one else to do it, Harry. Hilda is going."

The young man was so surprised that he took the pipe from his mouth,
gave an expressive whistle, and came into the room.

"Hilda leaving? I just met her coming down stairs with all her things
on. She looks deuced pretty in her street clothes. What are you sending
her for?"

"She gave me insolence. I scolded her for neglecting her work. She said
she would go. That's all." Looking at her son searchingly, she added:
"Why are you so interested?"

The young man laughed, and, throwing himself into an armchair,
proceeded to make himself comfortable.

"Interested? I'm not particularly interested that I know of. I'm sorry
if you have to do all the work, that's all."

Mrs. Parkes shook her head ominously as she said:

"Harry, you're your father over again."

Absorbed in reading his newspaper, the young man at first made no
answer. Then looking up, he chuckled lightly:

"Mother--you're over-anxious--and like most over-anxious mothers, you're
mistaken."

Mrs. Parkes looked at him fondly as she answered slowly:

"My dear boy--I know human nature----"

He shrugged his shoulders impatiently:

"You knew father, that's all," he said testily. "I wish to goodness he'd
been a better husband, then you wouldn't make my life miserable by
always suspecting the worst. I can't speak to a girl--I can't even look
at one--that you don't jump to the ridiculous conclusion that I'm
falling in love with her, or that I'm like my father. Why don't you hire
Japs?"

His mother could not suppress a smile:

"They're too expensive for a boarding house. Besides, some of my lady
guests might object to having them around. No--it's not you, my boy.
It's our designing sex I'm afraid of. I know I'm anxious, but I don't
want to lose you as I lost your father."

"You're always throwing my father at me," he answered. "Can I help it if
he was a little wild? He's dead now. Why can't you let him alone?"

Rising and flinging down his newspaper with a gesture of impatience, the
young man crossed the room, and, pausing at a door near the window, he
leaned his