f."

The girls on the back seat had hold of each other's hands, and they
exchanged electrical pressures at the different points their father
made.

"I presume," said Mrs. Lapham, "that he was down in Texas looking after
something."

"He's come back without finding it, I guess."

"Well, if his father has the money to support him, and don't complain
of the burden, I don't see why WE should."

"Oh, I know it's none of my business, but I don't like the principle.
I like to see a man ACT like a man. I don't like to see him taken care
of like a young lady. Now, I suppose that fellow belongs to two or
three clubs, and hangs around 'em all day, lookin' out the
window,--I've seen 'em,--instead of tryin' to hunt up something to do
for an honest livin'."

"If I was a young man," Penelope struck in, "I would belong to twenty
clubs, if I could find them and I would hang around them all, and look
out the window till I dropped."

"Oh, you would, would you?" demanded her father, delighted with her
defiance, and twisting his fat head around over his shoulder to look at
her. "Well, you wouldn't do it on my money, if you were a son of MINE,
young lady."

"Oh, you wait and see," retorted the girl.

This made them all laugh. But the Colonel recurred seriously to the
subject that night, as he was winding up his watch preparatory to
putting it under his pillow.

"I could make a man of that fellow, if I had him in the business with
me. There's stuff in him. But I spoke up the way I did because I
didn't choose Irene should think I would stand any kind of a loafer
'round--I don't care who he is, or how well educated or brought up.
And I guess, from the way Pen spoke up, that 'Rene saw what I was
driving at."

The girl, apparently, was less anxious about her father's ideas and
principles than about the impression which he had made upon the young
man. She had talked it over and over with her sister before they went
to bed, and she asked in despair, as she stood looking at Penelope
brushing out her hair before the glass--

"Do you suppose he'll think papa always talks in that bragging way?"

"He'll be right if he does," answered her sister. "It's the way father
always does talk. You never noticed it so much, that's all. And I
guess if he can't make allowance for father's bragging, he'll be a
little too good. I enjoyed hearing the Colonel go on."

"I know you did," returned Irene in distress. Then she sighed.
"Didn't