support him. Seems to me, if I had his health and his education, I should want to strike out and do something for myself." 

 The girls on the back seat had hold of each other's hands, and they exchanged electrical pressures at the different points their father made. 

 "I presume," said Mrs. Lapham, "that he was down in Texas looking after something." 

 "He's come back without finding it, I guess." 

 "Well, if his father has the money to support him, and don't complain of the burden, I don't see why WE should." 

 "Oh, I know it's none of my business, but I don't like the principle. I like to see a man ACT like a man. I don't like to see him taken care of like a young lady. Now, I suppose that fellow belongs to two or three clubs, and hangs around 'em all day, lookin' out the window,--I've seen 'em,--instead of tryin' to hunt up something to do for an honest livin'." 

 "If I was a young man," Penelope struck in, "I would belong to twenty clubs, if I could find them and I would hang around them all, and look out the window till I dropped." 

 "Oh, you would, would you?" demanded her father, delighted with her defiance, and twisting his fat head around over his shoulder to look at her.  "Well, you wouldn't do it on my money, if you were a son of MINE, young lady." 

 "Oh, you wait and see," retorted the girl. 

 This made them all laugh. But the Colonel recurred seriously to the subject that night, as he was winding up his watch preparatory to putting it under his pillow. 

 "I could make a man of that fellow, if I had him in the business with me. There's stuff in him. But I spoke up the way I did because I didn't choose Irene should think I would stand any kind of a loafer 'round--I don't care who he is, or how well educated or brought up. And I guess, from the way Pen spoke up, that 'Rene saw what I was driving at." 

 The girl, apparently, was less anxious about her father's ideas and principles than about the impression which he had made upon the young man. She had talked it over and over with her sister before they went to bed, and she asked in despair, as she stood looking at Penelope brushing out her hair before the glass-- 

 "Do you suppose he'll think papa always talks in that 

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