he household. The coffee was to his
liking; it was indubitably better than he had been used to; but the
thing would not do. He must show Phil the error of her ways and lose no
time about it.

"I'm sorry you didn't like the girl they sent you; but you must find
another. There's no reason, of course, why you shouldn't choose for
yourself; but it's not easy to find help in a town like this. I can't
have you doing the housework. That must be understood, Phil."

"You're not having me; I'm having me, which is a very different thing.
If you had driven me into the kitchen with loud, furious words, I should
have rebelled--screamed, and made a terrible scene. But you did nothing
of the kind. It happened in this wise. Glancing up quite by chance, as
it were, you beheld me pouring coffee of my own brewing. Fatherly pride
extinguished any feeling of shock or chagrin. You have smothered any
class feeling that may linger in your aristocratic soul and are making a
good bluff at enjoying the eating of your breakfast with the lady who
cooked it. Could anything be more beautiful? The ayes seem to have it;
the ayes have it, as I used to be fond of saying when I was boss of the
Philomathean. I wish now I'd taken the domestic science course more
seriously and spent less time in the gymnasium. But thus it is we live
and learn."

Phil's tone made rebuke difficult. He loved her foolishness just as her
Uncle Amzi did--just as every one did except her aunts, for whom the
affected stiltedness of her speech was merely a part of her general
deplorable unconventionality.

"Well, Phil, the idea of your cooking the meals for this establishment
isn't debatable. You're overruled and the debate closed."

"Still harping on my daughter's cooking! Please, in current idiom, cut
it out. Try marmalade on that too, too perfect toast."

He accepted marmalade and returned to the attack.

"You see, Phil, everything's different now. You've got to wake up to
your social responsibilities."

"And be a perfect lady? I know. Amy got me into the back room of the
bank yesterday and told me. One's aunts had bullied the old dear into
springing the sad intelligence. Then Nan had already given me a session.
And now you, too, Brutus, are about to lay the matter before me in a few
crisp sentences. But why all this assumption that I'm not a real lady?
There's a good deal of loose thinking on that subject, to use one of
your own best phrases. If there is nothing more befo