ne
evening, "if he could know all the queer sorts of ways in which we use
his money. But the little easings-up do count for so much."

"Indeed they do," Hilary agreed warmly, "though it hasn't all gone for
easings-ups, as you call them, either." She had sat down right in the
middle of getting ready for bed, to revel in her ribbon box; she so
loved pretty ribbons!

The committee on finances, as Pauline called her mother, Hilary, and
herself, held frequent meetings. "And there's always one thing," the
girl would declare proudly, "the treasury is never entirely empty."

She kept faithful account of all money received and spent; each month a
certain amount was laid away for the "rainy day"--which meant, really,
the time when the checks should cease to come---"for, you know, Uncle
Paul only promised them for the _summer_," Pauline reminded the others,
and herself, rather frequently. Nor was all of the remainder ever
quite used up before the coming of the next check.

"You're quite a business woman, my dear," Mr. Shaw said once, smiling
over the carefully recorded entries in the little account-book she
showed him. "We must have named you rightly."

She wrote regularly to her uncle; her letters unconsciously growing
more friendly and informal from week to week. They were bright, vivid
letters, more so than Pauline had any idea of. Through them, Mr. Paul
Shaw felt himself becoming very well acquainted with these young
relatives whom he had never seen, and in whom, as the weeks went by, he
felt himself growing more and more interested.

Without realizing it, he got into the habit of looking forward to that
weekly letter; the girl wrote a nice clear hand, there didn't seem to
be any nonsense about her, and she had a way of going right to her
point that was most satisfactory. It seemed sometimes as if he could
see the old white parsonage and ivy-covered church; the broad
tree-shaded lawns; the outdoor parlor, with the young people gathered
about the tea-table; Bedelia, picking her way along the quiet country
roads; the great lake in all its moods; the manor house.

Sometimes Pauline would enclose one or two of Hilary's snap-shots of
places, or persons. At one of these, taken the day of the fishing
picnic, and under which Hilary had written "The best catch of the
season," Mr. Paul Shaw looked long and intently. Somehow he had never
pictured Phil to himself as middle-aged. If anyone had told him, when
the lad was