"But Charlie," Mrs. Ladue continued, somewhat anxiously,--"Charlie, I'm afraid, does. He has changed a good deal in these four years. He's hard to manage." "Patty can't manage him, if you mean that," Mr. Hazen agreed. "She doesn't try very hard. But he's developed in the wrong direction, that's all, I think." "No." There was a curious hardness in Mrs. Ladue's voice and manner. It did not seem possible that she could be speaking of her own little son. "I doubt if he could be developed in any other direction. He's very much like his father. His father was--" She stopped abruptly. "But there is no use in going over that," she added. Mr. Hazen nodded. "I knew Charles before you did," he observed, "and--but, as you say, there is nothing to be gained by going into that. I may as well speak to Patty--again." "I have absolutely no influence with Charlie now," Mrs. Ladue sighed. "It is natural enough that I should not have any." Mr. Hazen's talk with Patty amounted to nothing, as was to be expected. No doubt he did expect it, for it is not to be supposed that he could have lived with Patty Havering for nearly forty years without knowing her traits. She had no real firmness. She had obstinacy enough; a quiet, mulish obstinacy which left her exactly where one found her. She was absolutely untouched by argument or persuasion, to which she made little reply, although she sometimes fretted and grew restive under it. Nothing short of her father's quiet "I wish it, Patty" was of the least avail. She gave in to that because she knew that it was a command, not because she knew that it was right. As to that, was not _she_ always right? She never had the least doubt of it. She sometimes doubted the expediency of an act; it was not expedient to disobey her father's implied commands. Not that she had ever tried it, but she did not think that it would be expedient. I don't think that it would have been either. It was just as well, perhaps, that she never tried it. But, in a matter like this one of Charlie, there was no command direct enough to enforce obedience. You know what I mean, as Miss Patty might have said; thereby implying that she hoped that you did, for she didn't. She was not quite clear about it in her own mind, but there seemed little risk in doing as she wanted to rather than as her father wanted her to. Her own ideas were rather hazy and the more she tried to think it out the more muddled she got. Anyway, she said to herself, as she gave it up, she wouldn't, and she got up from the rocking-chair which she permitted herself in her own room and went briskly about her duties. She had sat there for as much as half an hour. She had been watching Charlie chasing about Morton's lot, for she could see over the high wall as she sat. Most of the boys were tolerant chaps, as most boys are, after a certain age; but some of them were not and some others had not reached that age of tolerance apparently. Fortunately for Miss Patty's peace of mind she did not