hearted darling!" interposed Kate.

"But, aunt," persisted Harry, "if you only knew what the mass of young
men are--"

"Don't I?" interrupted the impetuous lady. "What is there that is not
known to any woman who has common sense, and eyes enough to look out of
a window?"

"If you only knew," Harry went on, "how superior Phil Malbone is, in his
whole tone, to any fellow of my acquaintance."

"Lord help the rest!" she answered. "Philip has a sort of refinement
instead of principles, and a heart instead of a conscience,--just heart
enough to keep himself happy and everybody else miserable."

"Do you mean to say," asked the obstinate Hal, "that there is no
difference between refinement and coarseness?"

"Yes, there is," she said.

"Well, which is best?"

"Coarseness is safer by a great deal," said Aunt Jane, "in the hands
of a man like Philip. What harm can that swearing coachman do, I should
like to know, in the street yonder? To be sure it is very unpleasant,
and I wonder they let people swear so, except, perhaps, in waste places
outside the town; but that is his way of expressing himself, and he only
frightens people, after all."

"Which Philip does not," said Hal.

"Exactly. That is the danger. He frightens nobody, not even himself,
when he ought to wear a label round his neck marked 'Dangerous,' such as
they have at other places where it is slippery and brittle. When he is
here, I keep saying to myself, 'Too smooth, too smooth!'"

"Aunt Jane," said Harry, gravely, "I know Malbone very well, and I never
knew any man whom it was more unjust to call a hypocrite."

"Did I say he was a hypocrite?" she cried. "He is worse than that; at
least, more really dangerous. It is these high-strung sentimentalists
who do all the mischief; who play on their own lovely emotions,
forsooth, till they wear out those fine fiddlestrings, and then have
nothing left but the flesh and the D. Don't tell me!"

"Do stop, auntie," interposed Kate, quite alarmed, "you are really worse
than a coachman. You are growing very profane indeed."

"I have a much harder time than any coachman, Kate," retorted the
injured lady. "Nobody tries to stop him, and you are always hushing me
up."

"Hushing you up, darling?" said Kate. "When we only spoil you by
praising and quoting everything you say."

"Only when it amuses you," said Aunt Jane. "So long as I sit and cry my
eyes out over a book, you all love me, and when I talk nonsense, you are