He jumped up as Helen Peyton came into the room. “Why, Pinky,” she said, “when did you come?”

“Just now, my girl, as you noted from your oriel lattice,—and came running down to bask in the sunshine of my smiles.”

“Behave yourself, Pinky,” admonished his aunt, as she noted Helen’s quick blush and realized the saucy boy had told the truth.

Pinckney Payne, college freshman, and nephew of Emily Bates, was very fond of Doctor Waring, his English teacher, and as also fond, in his boyish way, of his aunt. But he was no respecter of authority, and, now that his aunt was to be the wife of his favorite professor, also the President-elect of the college, he assumed an absolute familiarity with the whole household.

His nickname was not only an abbreviation, but was descriptive of his exuberant health and invariably red cheeks. For the rest, he was just a rollicking, care-free boy, ring leader in college fun, often punished, but bobbing up serenely again, ready for more mischief.

Helen Peyton adored the irrepressible Pinky, and though he liked her, it was no more than he felt for many others and not so much as he had for a few.

“Tea, Mrs. Peyton? Oh, yes, indeed, thank you. Yes, two lemon and three sugar. And toasts,—and cakies,—oh, what good ones! What a tuck! Alma Mater doesn’t feed us like this! I say, Aunt Emily, after you are married, may I come to tea every day? And bring the fellows?”

“I’ll answer that,—you may,” said John Waring.

“And I’ll revise the answer,—you may, with reservations,” Mrs. Bates supplemented. “Now, Pinky, you’re a dear and a sweet, but you can’t annex this house and all its affairs, just because it’s going to be my home.”

“Don’t want to, Auntie. I only want you to annex me. You’ll keep the same cook we have at present, won’t you?”

He looked solicitously at her, over a large slice of toast and jam he was devouring.

“Maybe and maybe not,” Mrs. Peyton spoke up. “Cooks are not always anxious to be kept.”

“At any rate, we’ll have a cook, Pinky, of some sort,” his aunt assured him, and the boy turned to tease Helen Peyton, who was quite willing to be teased.

“I saw your beau today, Helen,” he said.

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