On a certain night in April I was in the sitting-room trying to keep awake until Alec came home. His train was not due until midnight. I was awfully anxious to wait up for him, but at ten o'clock I was so sleepy that I couldn't keep my eyes open another minute. So I went to Father's roll-top desk and scribbled this on a piece of paper: "_Dear Alec--Be sure and stop at my room when you come in. Bobbie_," and fastened it with a wire hairpin on the light that I left burning. Alec and I were on friendly terms again, and the whole world was smiling for me. I didn't care if the "For Sale" was still hitting me in the face every time I entered the yard, since Alec had put me back in charge of the Household Account. I might have known my cheque-book wouldn't have lied for me. Alec didn't get around to look into my bookkeeping until about the first of January, and then he was so delighted to discover that I hadn't failed in my trust, after all, that he couldn't reinstate me quickly enough. It was so good to be friends again, such a relief to have his faith in me restored and made whole, that I guess he didn't want to risk urging me to explain what I really wanted the seventy-five dollars for. "I know you'll explain all about it, sometime," he said. And I replied, "Sometime, Alec." That was the way our quarrel ended. The next morning I walked to the factory with my brother; the next evening I sat with him by the drop-light and when he went to bed I carried to his room some hot milk and crackers so that he would sleep. Since then we have been nearer to each other than ever before. There is something beautiful about our relations. I'd die for Alec. I don't believe there ever has been a brother and sister more congenial than Alec and I. I know just how to please him, and he knows better than any one in this world how to manage me. There isn't a prouder girl alive than I, when Alec confides his business affairs to me. I do not understand them very well. Companies and Coöperations, Preferred and Common Stock, Bonds and Bank-notes are all a perfect jumble in my mind. But I've learned long ago, that nothing will shut a man up more quickly than a comment on a girl's part that shows him how ignorant she is. So now I keep still; listen as hard and closely as I can; sympathise with my whole heart when Alec is worried, and rejoice with him when he announces that some Boston bank or other has lent him twenty-five thousand dollars, although I _am_ frightened to death of borrowing. I never give my brother a chance to scoff at a girl's comprehension of business transactions. The result is, he talks to me by the hour, and thinks I understand a great deal more than I do.