ing just shaved."

It was not yet dark out-of-doors, but after a few minutes of further
deliberation, Alec pulled down the blind over his window and lighted
the lamp. Then, opening a box that he took from his bureau, he drew
out his Grandfather Macklin's razor and ivory-handled shaving-brush.

"I'm sure the old gentleman never dreamed, when they made me his
namesake, that this was all of his property I would fall heir to," he
thought, bitterly.

The moody expression that settled on his face at the thought had
become almost habitual in the last four weeks. The happy-go-lucky boy
of seventeen seemed to have changed in that time to a morose man.
June had left him the jolliest boy in the high school graduating
class. September found him a morbid cynic.

It had been nine years since his mother, just before her death, had
brought him back to the old home for her sister Eunice to take care
of--Alec and the little five-year-old Philippa and the baby Macklin.
Their Aunt Eunice had made a happy home for them, and although she
rarely laughed herself, and her hair had whitened long before its
time, she had allowed no part of her burdens to touch their
thoughtless young lives. It was only lately that Alec had been
aroused to the fact that she had any burdens. He was rehearsing them
all now, as he rubbed the lather over his chin, so busily that he did
not hear Philippa's light step on the back stairs. Philippa could
step very lightly when she chose, despite the fact that she was long
and awkward, with that temporary awkwardness of a growing girl who
finds it hard to adjust herself and her skirts to her constantly
increasing height.

Alec almost dropped his brush as she suddenly banged on his door. "Is
that you, Flip?" he called, although he knew no one but Philippa ever
beat such thundering tattoos on his door.

"Yes! Let me in! I want to ask you something."

He knew just how her sharp gray eyes would scan him, and he hesitated
an instant, divided between a desire to let her see him in the manly
act of shaving himself and the certain knowledge that she would tease
him if he did.

Finally he threw open the door and turned to the glass in his most
indifferent manner, as if it were an every-day occurrence with him.
"Come in," he said; "I'm only shaving. I'm going out this evening."

If he had thought she would be impressed by his lordly air, he was
mistaken, for, after one prolonged stare, she threw herself on the
bed, shrie