the boys, and Frosty
Miller. I had to answer that letter and the questions--and that's how it
began. It was a good deal of a nuisance, for I never did take much to pen
work, and my conscience was hurting me half the time over delayed answers;
Edith was always prompt; she liked to write letters better than I did,
evidently.

But when she wrote, the day after I got that letter from Frosty, and said
that Beryl and Aunt Lodema had just returned and were going to spend the
winter in New York and join the Giddy Whirl, I will own that I was a much
better--that is, prompt--correspondent. Edith is that kind of girl who
can't write two pages without mentioning every one in her set; like those
Local Items from little country towns; a paragraph for everybody.

So, having a strange and unwholesome hankering to hear all I could about
Beryl, I encouraged Edith to write long and often by setting her an
example. I didn't consider that I was taking a mean advantage of her,
either, for she's the kind of girl who boasts about the number of her
proposals and correspondents. I knew she'd cut a notch for me on the stick
where she counted her victims, but it was worth the price, and I'm
positive Edith didn't mind.

The only drawback was the disgusting frequency with which the words "Beryl
and Terence Weaver" appeared; that did rather get on my nerves, and I did
ask Edith once if Terence Weaver was the only man in New York. In fact,
I was at one time on the point of going to New York myself and taking it
out of Mr. Terence Weaver. I just ached to give him a run for his money.
But when I hinted it--going to New York, I mean--dad looked rather hurt.

"I had expected you'd stay at home until after the holidays, at least," he
remarked. "I'm old-fashioned enough to feel that a family should be
together Christmas week, if at no other time. It doesn't necessarily
follow that because there are only two left--" Dad dropped his glasses
just then, and didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. I'd have
stayed, then, no matter what string was pulling me to New York. It's so
seldom, you see, that dad lowers his guard and lets you glimpse the real
feeling there is in him. I felt such a cur for even wanting to leave him,
that I stayed in that evening instead of going down to the Olympic, where
was to be a sort of impromptu boxing-match between a couple of our
swiftest amateurs.

Talking to dad was virtuous, but unexciting. I remember we discussed the