collar slumping and
the perspiration rolling in tidal waves down your manly brow doesn't
strike me as being a particularly desirable diversion."

"H-mp!" sniffed Charley. "You didn't object to dancing last summer when
it was twice as hot. You went to a dance almost every night when Carlotta
was visiting Tony. You know you did."

"I wasn't a member of the esteemed firm of Stuart Lambert and Son last
summer. A lily of the field can afford to dance all night. I'm a working
man I'd have you know."

"Well, I think you might come just this once to please us," joined in
Clare, the other twin. "You are a gorgeous dancer, Phil. I'd rather have
a one step with you than any man I know." Clare always beguiled where
Charley bullied, a method much more successful in the long run as Charley
sometimes grudgingly admitted after the fact.

Phil smiled now at pretty Clare and promised to think about it and the
twins flew off across the street to visit with Tony and Ruth whom the
whole Hill adored.

"Phil dear, aren't you happy?" asked Mrs. Lambert. "Have we asked too
much of you expecting you to settle down at home with us?"

"Why yes, Mums. I'm all right." Phil left his post on the rail and
dropped into a chair beside his mother. Perhaps he did it purposely lest
she see too much. "Don't get notions in your head. I like living in
Dunbury. I wouldn't live in a city for anything and I like being with Dad
not to mention the rest of you."

Mrs. Lambert shifted her position also. She wanted to see her son's face;
just as much as he didn't want her to see it.

"Possibly that is all so but you aren't happy for all that. You can't
fool mother eyes, my dear."

Phil looked straight at her then with a little rueful smile.

"I reckon I can't," he admitted. "Very well then. I am not entirely happy
but it is nobody's fault and nothing anybody can help."

"Philip, is it a girl?"

How they dread the _girl_ in their sons' lives--these mothers! The very
possibility of her in the abstract brings a shadow across the path.

"Yes, Mums, it is a girl."

Mrs. Lambert rose and went over to where her son sat, running her fingers
through his hair as she had been wont to do when the little boy Phil was
in trouble of any sort.

"I am very sorry, dear boy," she said. "It won't help to talk about it?"

"I am afraid not. Don't worry, Mums. It is just--well, it hurts a little
just now that's all."

She kissed his forehead and went back to her chair.