" said Uncle Mac, keeping time
to the music as if he would not mind "going in" for a bit of pleasure
himself.

"My girl shall taste and try, but unless I'm much mistaken, a little
bit of it will satisfy her. I want to see if she will stand the test,
because if not, all my work is a failure and I'd like to know it,"
answered the doctor with a hopeful smile on his lips but an anxious look
in his eyes.

"She will come out all right bless her heart! so let her sow her
innocent wild oats and enjoy herself till she is ready to settle down.
I wish all our young folks were likely to have as small a crop and get
through as safely as she will," added Uncle Mac with a shake of the head
as he glanced at some of the young men revolving before him.

"Nothing amiss with your lads, I hope?"

"No, thank heaven! So far I've had little trouble with either, though
Mac is an odd stick and Steve a puppy. I don't complain, for both will
outgrow that sort of thing and are good fellows at heart, thanks to
their mother. But Clara's boy is in a bad way, and she will spoil him as
a man as she has as a boy if his father doesn't interfere."

"I told brother Stephen all about him when I was in Calcutta last year,
and he wrote to the boy, but Clara has got no end of plans in her head
and so she insisted on keeping Charlie a year longer when his father
ordered him off to India," replied the doctor as they walked away.

"It is too late to 'order' Charlie is a man now, and Stephen will find
he has been too easy with him all these years. Poor fellow, it has been
hard lines for him, and is likely to be harder, I fancy, unless he comes
home and straightens things out."

"He won't do that if he can help it. He has lost all his energy living
in that climate and hates worry more than ever, so you can imagine what
an effort it would be to manage a foolish woman and a headstrong boy. We
must lend a hand, Mac, and do our best for poor old Steve."

"The best we can do for the lad is to marry and settle him as soon as
possible."

"My dear fellow, he is only three and twenty," began the doctor, as
if the idea was preposterous. Then a sudden change came over him as
he added with a melancholy smile, "I forget how much one can hope and
suffer, even at twenty-three."

"And be all the better for, if bravely outlived," said Uncle Mac, with
his hand on his brother's shoulder and the sincerest approval in
his voice. Then, kindly returning to the younger people,