in
Berkeley, less the amount of his fare to and fro. We might have little
Yung Lee again, and Mrs. Howe will be glad to rent her extra room. It
has a fireplace, and will serve for both bedroom and study, if we add a
table and student-lamp."

"I don't believe he will come," said Polly. "We are all very well as a
diversion, but as a constancy we should pall upon him. I never could
keep up to the level I have been maintaining for the last twenty-four
hours, that is certain. It is nothing short of degradation to struggle
as hard to amuse a boy as I have struggled to amuse Edgar. I don't
believe he could endure such exhilaration week after week, and I am
very sure it would kill me. Besides, he will fancy he is going to be
watched and reported at headquarters in Santa Barbara!"

"I think very likely you are right; but perhaps I can put the matter so
that it will strike him in some other light."

"Very well, mamacita; I 'm resigned. It will break up all our nice
little two-ing, but we will be his guardian angel. I will be his
guardian and you his angel, and oh, how he would dislike it if he knew
it! But wait until odious Mr. Tony meets him to-night! What business
is it of his if my hair is red! When he chaffs him for breaking his
appointment, I dare say we shall never see him again."

"You are so jolly comfortable here! This house is the next best thing
to mother," said Edgar, with boyish heartiness, as he stood on the
white goatskin with his back to the Olivers' cheerful fireplace.

It was Wednesday evening of the next week. Polly was clearing away the
dinner things, and Edgar had been arranging Mrs. Oliver's chair and
pillows and footstool like the gentle young knight he was by nature.

What wonder that all the fellows, even "smirking Tony," liked him and
sought his company? He who could pull an oar, throw a ball, leap a
bar, ride a horse, or play a game of skill as if he had been born for
each particular occupation,--what wonder that the ne'er-do-wells and
idlers and scamps and dullards battered at his door continually and
begged him to leave his books and come out and "stir up things"!

"If you think it is so 'jolly,'" said Mrs. Oliver, "how would you like
to come here and live with us awhile?"

This was a bombshell. The boy hesitated naturally, being taken quite
by surprise. ("Confound it!" he thought rapidly, "how shall I get out
of this scrape without being impolite! They would n't give me on