wn. "Please pass the jam."

"Oh, all right, all right," said Burton amiably, "have it your own way,
by all means. Henceforth and forever after, we positively decline to do
our duty by you. But what is our duty to you? Answer me that, and then I
guarantee not to do it."

"It is our duty to keep Eveley right here with us and take care of her,"
said Winifred, with as much firmness as her soft voice could master. "She
is ours, and we are hers, and it is our duty to stand between her and a
hard world."

"You can't. In the first place I am awfully stuck on the world, and want
to get real chummy with it. Any one who tries to stand between it and me,
shall be fired out bodily, head first."

"Oh, Eveley," came a sudden wail from Winifred, "you can't go off and
live by yourself. What will people think? They will say we could not get
along together."

"That is it,--just that and nothing more. It isn't duty that bothers
you--it is What-will-people-think? An exploded theory, nothing more."
Then she smiled at her sister winsomely. "You positively are the sweetest
thing, Winnie. And your Burton I absolutely love. And your babies are the
most irresistible angels that ever came to bless and--enliven--a sordid
world. But you are a family by yourselves. You are used to doing what you
want, and when you want, and how you want. I would be an awful nuisance.
When Burton would incline to a quiet evening, I should have a party. When
you and he would like to slip off to a movie, you would have to be polite
and invite me. Nobody could be crazier about nieces and nephews than I
am, but sometimes if I were tired from my work their chatter might make
me peevish. And you would punish them when I thought you shouldn't, and
wouldn't do it when I thought you should, and think of the arguments
there would be. And so we all agree, don't we, that it would be more fun
for me to move off by myself and then come to see you and be
company,--rather than stick around under your feet until you grow deadly
tired of me?"

"I do not agree," said Winifred.

"I do," said Burton.

"Then we are a majority, and it is all settled."

"But where in the world will you live, dear? You could not stand a
boarding-house."

"I could if I had to, but I don't have to. I have been favored with an
inspiration. I can't imagine how it ever happened, but perhaps it was a
special dispensation to save you from me. I am going to live in my own
house on Thorn Street. Of course