you come in or I would have been down-stairs to meet you."

"You're not all right," Philip protested stoutly, still holding his
father's hand and looking squarely into his face. "You don't need to do
this with me, Dad; I'm a man now, and we ought to talk together like
men.--Has this anything to do with what you wrote me about my
allowance?"

"We'll discuss it in the morning, Phil," Thatcher evaded. "Get dressed
now, and later we'll talk things over like two men, as you say. It will
help me to do that. Don't worry, boy; everything will come out all
right."

"That's a promise, Dad?"

"Yes; we'll put our heads together in the morning."

Thatcher was as gay as the young people when they sat down to dinner,
and entered into the enjoyment of the home-coming so heartily that
Marian was relieved.

"All you needed, Harry, was to have Phil come home," she said. "Couldn't
you telephone for another ticket and go with us?"

"Not to-night; I have work to do. To-morrow Phil is going to lend a
hand, and then perhaps we'll have some play together.--Tell us of your
uncle, Billy."

"Oh, Uncle Monty is all right,--except that he's become so terribly
sober and serious. What did you people do to him down at Bermuda? He
hasn't been the same since."

"He was serious down there," Merry asserted.

"Oh, he never was a cut-up, of course," Billy explained; "but he was
always saying things to make you laugh, and I could jolly him just as if
he was one of the fellows."

"Can't you do it now?" Mrs. Thatcher inquired.

"No; if I do he gets sore. Why, only the other night Phil and I went in
there to dinner. I made some remark about his being a woman-hater, and
he got huffed up in a minute. Didn't he, Phil?"

"Monty Huntington a woman-hater?" Mrs. Thatcher laughed. "No wonder he
was 'huffed'!"

"But he never married, did he? Isn't that a sure sign that he's a
woman-hater?"

"Oh, dear no!" Mrs. Thatcher insisted. "That may be taken quite as much
as an evidence of his profoundest respect and veneration for woman. In
fact, if fifty per cent. of the men who do marry would refrain from it
no greater tribute could be paid us!"

The boy looked at her inquiringly. "Do all older people run marriage
down like that?" he inquired. "Every time the subject comes up some one
gives it a knock. With Uncle Monty, of course, it's sour grapes, because
now he's so old no one would think of marrying him, but--"

"He's not so old," Merry interrupted une