bout this matter of wild oats. Why is it so necessary that they
should be sown? Is Margery sowing hers? I don't know that Polly feels
bound to sow any."

"I dare say they are not necessities," laughed Edgar, coloring.
"Perhaps they are only luxuries."

Mrs. Oliver looked at the fire soberly. "I know there may be plenty of
fine men who have a discreditable youth to look back upon,--a youth
finally repented of and atoned for; but that is rather a weary process,
I should think, and they are surely no stronger men _because_ of the
'wild oats,' but rather in _spite_ of them."

"I suppose so," sighed Edgar; "but it's so easy for women to be good!
I know you were born a saint, to begin with. You don't know what it is
to be in college, and to want to do everything that you can't and ought
n't, and nothing that you can and ought, and get all tangled up in
things you never meant to touch. However, we 'll see!"

Polly peeped in at the door very softly.

"They have n't any light; that 's favorable. He 's sitting on my
footstool; he need n't suppose he is going to have _that_ place! I
think she has her hand on his arm,--yes, she has! And he is stroking
it! Oh, you poor innocent child, you do not realize that that soft
little hand of my mother's never lets go! It slips into a five and
three-quarters glove, but you 'll be surprised, Mr. Edgar, when you
discover you cannot get away from it. Very well, then; it is settled.
I 'll go back and put the salt fish in soak for my boarder's breakfast.
I seem to have my hands rather full!--a house to keep, an invalid
mother, and now a boarder. The very thing I vowed that I never would
have--another boarder; what grandmamma would have called an 'unstiddy
boy boarder!"

And as Polly clattered the pots and pans, the young heathen in the
parlor might have heard her fresh voice singing with great energy:

"Shall we, whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high,--
Shall we to men benighted
The lamp of life deny?"

CHAPTER IX.

HARD TIMES.

The new arrangement worked exceedingly well.

As to Edgar's innermost personal feelings, no one is qualified to speak
with any authority. Whether he experienced a change of heart, vowed
better things, prayed to be delivered from temptation, or simply
decided to turn over a new leaf, no one knows; the principal fact in
his life, at this period, seems to have been an unprecedented lack of
time for any great foolishness.