"Oh, I didn't mean anything by it except opposition," said Penelope.
"I couldn't have father swelling on so, without saying something."

"How he did swell!" sighed Irene. "Wasn't it a relief to have mamma
come down, even if she did seem to be all stocking at first?"

The girls broke into a wild giggle, and hid their faces in each other's
necks. "I thought I SHOULD die," said Irene.

"'It's just like ordering a painting,'" said Penelope, recalling her
father's talk, with an effect of dreamy absent-mindedness. "'You give
the painter money enough, and he can afford to paint you a first-class
picture. Give an architect money enough, and he'll give you a
first-class house, every time.'"

"Oh, wasn't it awful!" moaned her sister. "No one would ever have
supposed that he had fought the very idea of an architect for weeks,
before he gave in."

Penelope went on. "'I always did like the water side of Beacon,--long
before I owned property there. When you come to the Back Bay at all,
give me the water side of Beacon.'"

"Ow-w-w-w!" shrieked Irene. "DO stop!"

The door of their mother's chamber opened below, and the voice of the
real Colonel called, "What are you doing up there, girls? Why don't you
go to bed?"

This extorted nervous shrieks from both of them. The Colonel heard a
sound of scurrying feet, whisking drapery, and slamming doors. Then he
heard one of the doors opened again, and Penelope said, "I was only
repeating something you said when you talked to Mr. Corey."

"Very well, now," answered the Colonel. "You postpone the rest of it
till to-morrow at breakfast, and see that you're up in time to let ME
hear it."

V.

AT the same moment young Corey let himself in at his own door with his
latch-key, and went to the library, where he found his father turning
the last leaves of a story in the Revue des Deux Mondes. He was a
white-moustached old gentleman, who had never been able to abandon his
pince-nez for the superior comfort of spectacles, even in the privacy
of his own library. He knocked the glasses off as his son came in and
looked up at him with lazy fondness, rubbing the two red marks that
they always leave on the side of the nose.

"Tom," he said, "where did you get such good clothes?"

"I stopped over a day in New York," replied the son, finding himself a
chair. "I'm glad you like them."

"Yes, I always do like your clothes, Tom," returned the father
thoughtfully, swinging his