."

"You are not fit to bring up a girl."

"I've brought her up for seven years without your help. She's my adopted
daughter, not yours. I do wish people would learn to mind their own
business."

"You've done very well--"

"Thank you," said Peter Hope sarcastically. "It's very kind of you.
Perhaps when you've time, you'll write me out a testimonial."

"--up till now," concluded the imperturbable Clodd. "A girl of eighteen
wants to know something else besides mathematics and the classics. You
don't understand them."

"I do understand them," asserted Peter Hope. "What do you know about
them? You're not a father."

"You've done your best," admitted William Clodd in a tone of patronage
that irritated Peter greatly; "but you're a dreamer; you don't know the
world. The time is coming when the girl will have to think of a
husband."

"There's no need for her to think of a husband, not for years," retorted
Peter Hope. "And even when she does, is strumming on the piano going to
help her?"

"I tink--I tink," said Dr. Smith, who had hitherto remained a silent
listener, "our young frent Clodd is right. You haf never quite got over
your idea dat she was going to be a boy. You haf taught her de tings a
boy should know."

"You cut her hair," added Clodd.

"I don't," snapped Peter.

"You let her have it cut--it's the same thing. At eighteen she knows
more about the ancient Greeks and Romans than she does about her own
frocks."

"De young girl," argued the doctor, "what is she? De flower dat makes
bright for us de garden of life, de gurgling brook dat murmurs by de
dusty highway, de cheerful fire--"

"She can't be all of them," snapped Peter, who was a stickler for style.
"Do keep to one simile at a time."

"Now you listen to plain sense," said William Clodd. "You want--we all
want--the girl to be a success all round."

"I want her--" Peter Hope was rummaging among the litter on the desk. It
certainly was not there. Peter pulled out a drawer-two drawers. "I
wish," said Peter Hope, "I wish sometimes she wasn't quite so clever."

The old doctor rummaged among dusty files of papers in a corner. Clodd
found it on the mantelpiece concealed beneath the hollow foot of a big
brass candlestick, and handed it to Peter.

Peter had one vice--the taking in increasing quantities of snuff, which
was harmful for him, as he himself admitted. Tommy, sympathetic to most
masculine frailties, was severe, however,