give it up, if he didn't make a hit of
it.

"I don't know that there's any crying need that he should do anything.
My own idea for him, perhaps, would be the Army, but I wouldn't dream of
forcing it on him against his will. I had a bitter enough dose of that,
myself, with father. I'd try to guide a youngster, yes, and perhaps
argue with him, if I thought he was making a jack of himself--but I
wouldn't dictate. If Alfred thinks he wants to be an artist, in God's
name let him go ahead. It can be made a gentlemanly trade--and the main
thing is that he should be a gentleman."

Louisa had listened to this discourse with apathetic patience. "If you
don't mind, I don't know that I do," she said when it was finished.
"Perhaps he wouldn't have made a good doctor; he's got a very quick
temper. He reminds me of father--oh, ever so much more than you do. He
contradicts everything everybody says. He quite knows it all."

"But he's a good fellow, isn't he?" urged Thorpe. "I mean, he's got his
likable points? I'm going to be able to get along with him?"

"I didn't get along with him very well," the mother admitted,
reluctantly, "but I daresay with a man it would be different. You see,
his father was ill all those four years, and Alfred hated the shop as
bad as you did, and perhaps in my worry I blamed him more than was fair.
I want to be fair to him, you know."

"But is he a gentleman? That puts it in a word," Thorpe insisted.

"Oh, mercy yes," Louisa made ready answer. "My only fear is--whether you
won't find him too much of a gentleman."

Thorpe knitted his brows. "I only hope we're talking about the same
thing," he said, in a doubtful tone. Before she could speak, he lifted
his hand. "Never mind--I can see for myself in ten minutes more than you
could tell me in a lifetime. I've got a plan. I'm going on the Continent
in a few days' time, to stay for three or four months. I've got nothing
special to do--just to travel about and see things and kill time--I
shall probably go to Italy and Switzerland and Paris and the Rhine
and all sorts of places--and it occurred to me that I'd take the two
youngsters with me. I could get acquainted with them, that way, and
they'd be company for me. I've been lonesome so long, it would feel good
to have some of my own flesh and blood about me--and I suppose they'd be
tickled to death to go."

"Their schooling and board are paid for up to Christmas," Mrs. Dabney
objected, blankly.

"Bah!" Th