arence exclaimed. "Why in the name of
goodness didn't you say so? There is no more need of your leaving this
place than there is of my going, or Laurie. We ought to have sensed
your feeling and seen to it that other plans were made long ago.
Indeed, you shall come back to your little riverside abode next
summer--never fear! And as for Aldercliffe, Pine Lea, Laurie and all
the rest of it, you shall not be parted from any of them."

"But I must go back to school now, sir."

"What's the matter with your staying on at Pine Lea and having your
lessons with Laurie and Mr. Hazen instead?"

"Oh--why----"

"Should you like to?"

"Oh, Mr. Fernald, it would be----"

Laurie's father laughed.

"I guess we do not need an answer to that question," Grandfather
Fernald remarked, smiling. "His face tells the tale."

"Then the thing is as good as done," Mr. Clarence announced. "Hazen
will be as set up as an old hen to have two chicks. He likes you, Ted."

"And well he may," growled Grandfather Fernald. "But for Ted's prayers
and pleas he would not now be here."

"Yes, Hazen will be much pleased," reiterated Mr. Clarence Fernald,
ignoring his father's comment. "As for Laurie--I wonder we never
thought of all this before. It is no more work to teach two boys than
one, and in the meantime each will act as a stimulus for the other. The
spur of rivalry will be a splendid incentive for Laurie, to say nothing
of the joy he will take in your companionship. He needs young people
about him. It is a great scheme, a great scheme!" mused Mr. Fernald,
rubbing his hands with increasing satisfaction as one advantage of the
arrangement after another rotated through his mind.

"If only my father does not object," murmured Ted.

"Object! Object!" blustered Grandfather Fernald. "And why, pray, should
he object?"

That a man of Mr. Turner's station in life should view the plan with
anything but pride and complacency was evidently a new thought to the
financier.

"Why, sir, my father and sisters are very fond of me and may not wish
to have me remain longer away from home. They have missed me a lot this
summer, I know that. You see I am the youngest one, the only boy."

"Humph!" interpolated the elder Mr. Fernald.

"In spite of the fact that we are crowded at home and too busy to see
much of one another, Father likes to feel I'm around," continued Ted.

"I--suppose--so," came slowly from the old gentleman.

"I am sure I can fix all that,"