oung sister-in-law meditatively.

"Mamie doesn't seem to be dear to your heart just now. Is she too
popular or too affected or too dressy?"

"Oh, she's just too utterly too too all around. I do have lots of fun
with her--she can be awfully nice when she wants to be, but----"

"But?"

"Oh, I don't know--she swells up so, lots of times over things I'd be
ashamed to tell--they're so silly."

"Yes, I guess Mamie's pretty cheap, but as long as you make friends with
her, don't rap her behind her back. It was all right to tell me--I
quizzed you anyhow. I wish you didn't see so much of her."

"Why, she's the only girl at school I can go with, who is anywhere near
my own age. The Kearns twins aren't even clean--I don't like to go near
them."

"I shouldn't think you would. Our public school system has its drawbacks
as well as its virtues. Well, Jane, be nice to Mamie, but don't--don't
be like her."

"You needn't worry; she's going to town to school after Christmas, so I
sha'n't see much more of her."

Mrs. Morton was still far from well, and she hung on Ernest's letters
almost pathetically. Ernest, boy fashion, was inclined to write long
letters when he had something interesting to tell and preserve a stony
silence when he didn't. Life at the academy was monotonous and he had to
work hard to keep up with his studies. Further, his father and Frank
suspected he was having many disagreeable experiences which he kept from
his family. These were still the days of rough hazing at the academy and
Ernest, being a western boy, big and strong and independent, was likely
to attract his full share of this unpleasant nagging. He revealed
something of his experiences in a letter to Sherm. Sherm showed the
letter to Chicken Little and Chicken Little, vaguely worried, told her
father. Dr. Morton talked it over with Frank.

"There isn't a thing you can do about it, Father. Most of it does the
boys more good than harm anyway. I talked to a West Pointer once about
the hazing there. He said some of it was pretty annoying and at times
decidedly rough, but that if a fellow behaved himself and took it
good-naturedly they soon let him alone. He said it was the best training
he had ever known for curing a growing boy of the big head. Don't
worry--Ernest has sense--he's all right."

To Chicken Little, Ernest confided, two weeks before Christmas, that he
was getting confoundedly tired of having the same things to eat week
after week. "Say, Si