e is Winny. What
is your plan?"

"He thinks of coming into the store--he can have poor Winter's place for
the present. At least, Mr. Stephens has made him that offer. He seems
to feel the necessity of doing something, if for no other purpose than
to use up his time."

Winny glanced up quickly. "Is that all his splendid collegiate education
is going to amount to?" she asked, wonderingly, and possibly with a
little touch of scorn in her voice. "A clerk in Mr. Stephens' store! I
thought he was going to study law?"

"He has used up his brain-power too thoroughly to have any hope of
carrying out these plans--at least at present," answered Theodore,
sadly. "But, after all, I think we may consider his life not _quite_ a
failure, if he should become such a man as Mr. Stephens. Well, grandma,
my plan is, that he could room with me, and so make you no extra work in
that direction, and, if you _could_ manage the other part, I believe it
would be a blessed thing for Pliny."

"Oh, we can manage that all nicely! Can't we, Winny dear? You are
willing to try it, I know!"

"Oh, _certainly_, mother--anything to be on the popular side--only I
think we might hang out a sign, and have the advantage of a little
notoriety in the matter."

There was this alleviating circumstance connected with Winny: She didn't
mean a single one of the sharp and rather unsympathetic things that she
said--and those that met her daily had come to understand this and
interpret her accordingly. So Theodore arose from the table, greatly
relieved in mind, and not a little gratified, that daughter, as well as
mother, was willing to co-operate with him. Thus it was that Pliny found
himself domiciled that very evening in Theodore's gem of a room--his
favorite books piled with Theodore's on the table, his dressing-case
standing beside Theodore's on the toilet-table opposite.

"This is jolly!" he said, eagerly, surveying with satisfied eye all the
neat appointments of the room, when at last everything had been arranged
in accordance with his fastidious taste.

"I declare I feel as if I had been made over new, or was somebody else
altogether--ready to begin life in decent, respectable earnest!"

And then he suddenly dropped into the arm-chair at his side, and buried
his face in his hands.

"Well now!" said Theodore, cheerily. "That's rather an April change,
when one considers that it is only January. My dear fellow, what spell
has come over you?"

"I was re