fficial census. They brought me up until I reached
the ripe age of twelve, then got tired of their job and went to heaven.
Since then I've brought myself up. I've just taught a college all it can
learn from me, and been put out. Prexy confided to me that I wasn't going
to graduate, so I shook the classic dust from my weary feet and fled
hither as to a harbour of refuge. I've always spent my Summers with Uncle
Ebeneezer, because it was cheap for me and good for him, but I can't
undertake to follow him up this Summer, not knowing exactly where he is,
and not caring for a warm climate anyway."

Inexpressibly shocked, Dorothy looked up to the portrait over the mantel
half fearfully, but there was no change in the stern, malicious old face.

"You're afraid of him, aren't you?" asked Dick, with a hearty laugh.

"I always have been," admitted Dorothy. "He scared me the first time we
came here--it was at night, and raining."

"I've known him to scare people in broad daylight, and they weren't always
women either. He used to be a pleasant old codger, but he got over it, and
after he learned to swear readily, he was a pretty tough party to buck up
against. It took nerve to stay here when uncle was in a bad mood, but most
people have more nerve than they think they have. You haven't told me your
name yet."

"Mrs. Carr--Dorothy Carr."

"Pretty name," remarked Dick, with evident admiration. "If you don't mind,
I'll call you 'Dorothy' till the train goes back. It will be something for
me to remember in the desert waste of my empty years to come."

A friendly, hospitable impulse seized Mrs. Carr. "Why should you go?" she
inquired, smiling. "If you've been in the habit of spending your Summers
here, you needn't change on our account. We'd be glad to have you, I'm
sure. A dear old friend of my husband's is already here."

"Fine or superfine?"

"Superfine," returned Dorothy, feeling very much as though the clock had
been turned back twenty years or more and she was at a children's party
again.

"You can bet your sweet life I'll stay," said Dick, "and if I bother you
at any time, just say so and I'll skate out, with no hard feelings on
either side. You may need me when the rest of the bunch gets here."

"The rest of--oh Harlan, come here a minute!"

She had caught him as he was going into the library with his work,
thinking that a change of environment might possibly produce an acceptable
change in the current of his thoughts