name,
and he became Jack, to be known by that name forever more.

After the smaller girls had disappeared stairward, Neale and Luke
unfolded one of the card-tables and began a game of chess which shut
them entirely out of the general conversation for the remainder of the
evening.

The girls and Mrs. MacCall chatted companionably. They had much to tell
each other, for, after all, the Corner House girls and Cecile Shepard
had spent but one adventurous night together and they needed to learn
the particulars of each other's lives before they really could feel "at
home with one another," as Agnes expressed it.

Cecile and her brother could scarcely remember their parents; and the
maiden aunt they lived with--a half sister of their father's--was the
only relative they knew anything about.

"Oh, no," Cecile said, "we can expect no step-up in this world by the
aid of any interested relative. There is no wealthy and influential
uncle or aunt to give us a helping hand. We're lucky to get an
education. Aunt Lorena makes that possible with her aid. And she does
what she can, I know full well, only by much self-sacrifice."

Then the cheerful girl began to laugh reminiscently. "That is," she
pursued, "_I_ can look forward to the help of no fairy godmother or
godfather. But Luke is in better odor with Neighbor than I am."

"'Neighbor'!" repeated Ruth. "Who is he? Or is it a what?"

"Or a game?" laughed Agnes. "'Neighbor'!"

"He is really great fun," said Cecile, still laughing. "So I suppose he
might be called a game. He really is a 'neighbor,' however. He is a man
named Henry Harrison Northrup, who lives right beside Aunt Lorena's
little cottage in Grantham.

"You see, Luke and I used always to work around Aunt Lorena's yard, and
have a garden, and chickens, and what-not when we were younger.
Everybody has big yards in that part of Grantham. And Mr. Northrup, on
one side, was always quarreling with auntie. He is a misogynist--"

"A mis-_what_-inest?" gasped Mrs. MacCall, hearing a new word.

"Oh, I know!" cried Agnes, eagerly. "A woman-hater. A man who hates
women."

"Humph!" scoffed Mrs. MacCall, "is there such indeed? And what do they
call a man-hater?"

"That, Mrs. MacCall, I cannot tell you," laughed Cecile. "I fear there
are no women man-haters--not _really_. At least there is no distinctive
title for them in the dictionary."

"So much the worse for the dictionary, then," said the Scotch woman.
"And, of course