However, her lecture made some impression upon the boys’ minds despite their excitement over the presents which were now brought to light. Full football outfits for both the present was, and Joe and Roger were delighted. They wanted to put them on and go out at once with the ball to “pass signals,” dark as it had become. However, they compromised on this at Dorothy’s advice, by taking the suits, pads and guards off to their room and trying them on, coming downstairs later to “show off” before the folks in the drawing-room. Major Dale was one of those men who never grow old in their hearts. Crippled as he was—both by his wounded leg and by rheumatism—he delighted to see the young life about him, and took as much interest in the affairs of the young people as ever he had. Aunt Winnie looked a very interesting invalid, indeed, with her lame ankle, and rested on the couch. The big boys and Dorothy and her friends always made much of Aunt Winnie in any case; now that she was “laid up in drydock,” as Nat expressed it, they were especially attentive. Jennie and Tavia, with the two older boys, spent most of the evening hovering about the lady’s couch, or at the piano where they played and sang college songs and old Briarwood songs, till eleven o’clock. Dorothy sat between her father and Aunt Winnie and talked to them. “What makes you so sober, Captain?” the major asked during the evening. He had always called her “his little captain” and sometimes seemed really to forget that she had any other name. “I’m all right, Major,” she returned brightly. “I have to think, sometimes, you know.” “What is the serious problem now, Dorothy?” asked her aunt, with a little laugh. “Did you forget to buy something while you were in New York?” Dorothy dimpled. “Wait till you see all I did buy,” she responded, “and you will not ask that question. I have been the most reckless person!” “Why the serious pucker to your brow, Captain?” went on the major. “Oh, I have problems. I admit the fact,” Dorothy said, trying to laugh off their questioning. “Out with them,” advised her father. “Here are two old folks who have been solving problems all their lives. Maybe we can help.” Dorothy laughed again. “Try this one,” she said, with her eyes upon the quartette “harmonizing” at the piano in dulcet tones, singing “Seeing Nellie Ho-o-ome.” “Which of our big boys does Tavia like best?” “Goodness!” exclaimed her aunt, while the major chuckled mellowly. “Don’t you know, really, Dorothy? I was going to ask _you_. I thought, of course, Tavia confided everything to you.” “Sooner or later she may,” the young woman said, still with the thoughtful air upon her. “But I am as much in the dark about this query as anybody—perhaps as the boys themselves.” “Humph!” muttered the major. “Which of them likes _her_ the better?”