ar is deplorable."

"Her health----" I murmured.

"Would not have hampered her had she given proper attention to
athletics! However, I did not call up to hear you defend Phillida in a
matter of which you are necessarily ignorant. Her father and I are
somewhat better judges, I should suppose, than a young man who is not a
student in any true sense of the word and ignores knowledge as a purpose
in life. Not that I wish to wound or depreciate you, Roger. There is, I
may say, a steadiness of moral character beneath your frivolity of mind
and pursuit. If my poor brother had trained you more wisely; if you had
been _my_ son----"

"Thank you, Aunt," I acknowledged the benevolent intention, with an
inward quailing at the clank of fetters suggested. "Was there something
I can do for you?"

"Will you meet Phillida at the Grand Central and bring her home? I
cannot have her cross New York alone and take a second train out here.
Her father has a lecture this afternoon and I have a club meeting at the
house."

"With pleasure, Aunt! What time does her train get in?"

"Half after four. Thank you, Roger. And, she looks on you as an elder
brother. I believe an attitude of cool disapproval on your part might
impress upon her how she has disappointed the family."

"Leave it to me, Aunt. May I take her to tea, between trains, and get
out to your place on the six o'clock express?"

"If you think best. You might advise her seriously over the tea."

"A dash of lemon, as it were," I reflected. "Certainly, Aunt, I could."

"Very well. I am really obliged!"

"The pleasure is mine, Aunt."

But that it was going to be Phillida's, I had already decided. She would
need the support of tea and French pastry before facing her home. As for
treating her with cool disapproval, I would sooner have spent a year at
Vassar myself. It was my intention to meet her with a box of chocolates
instead of advice. Phil was not allowed candy, her complexion being
under cultivation. On the occasions when we were out together it had
been my custom to provide a box of sweets, upon which she browsed
luxuriously, bestowing the remnants upon some street child before
reaching her home.

From the telephone I turned back to that frivolous pursuit of which my
aunt had spoken with such tactfully veiled contempt. She was not
softened by the respectable fortune I had made from several successful
musical comedies and a number of efforts which my publishers advertise