learned to cover themselves all over with little
pretences. When Penrod grows up he'll be just the same as he is now,
except that whenever he does what he wants to do he'll tell himself and
other people a little story about it to make his reason for doing it
seem nice and pretty and noble."

"No, I won't!" said Penrod suddenly.

"There's one cookie left," observed Aunt Sarah. "Are you going to eat
it?"

"Well," said her great-nephew, thoughtfully, "I guess I better."

"Why?" asked the old lady. "Why do you guess you'd 'better'?"

"Well," said Penrod, with a full mouth, "it might get all dried up if
nobody took it, and get thrown out and wasted."

"You're beginning finely," Mrs. Crim remarked. "A year ago you'd have
taken the cookie without the same sense of thrift."

"Ma'am?"

"Nothing. I see that you're twelve years old, that's all. There are more
cookies, Penrod." She went away, returning with a fresh supply and the
observation, "Of course, you'll be sick before the day's over; you might
as well get a good start."

Mrs. Schofield looked thoughtful. "Aunt Sarah," she ventured, "don't you
really think we improve as we get older?"

"Meaning," said the old lady, "that Penrod hasn't much chance to escape
the penitentiary if he doesn't? Well, we do learn to restrain ourselves
in some things; and there are people who really want someone else to
take the last cookie, though they aren't very common. But it's all
right, the world seems to be getting on." She gazed whimsically upon her
great-nephew and added, "Of course, when you watch a boy and think about
him, it doesn't seem to be getting on very fast."

Penrod moved uneasily in his chair; he was conscious that he was her
topic but unable to make out whether or not her observations were
complimentary; he inclined to think they were not. Mrs. Crim settled the
question for him.

"I suppose Penrod is regarded as the neighbourhood curse?"

"Oh, no," cried Mrs. Schofield. "He----"

"I dare say the neighbours are right," continued the old lady placidly.
"He's had to repeat the history of the race and go through all the
stages from the primordial to barbarism. You don't expect boys to be
civilized, do you?"

"Well, I----"

"You might as well expect eggs to crow. No; you've got to take boys as
they are, and learn to know them as they are."

"Naturally, Aunt Sarah," said Mrs. Schofield, "I KNOW Penrod."

Aunt Sarah laughed heartily. "Do you think his father kno