"I should like to do my duty to them both," she said; "and I believe I will do it best by going to the cottage. Father would get to be a great nuisance to mother at the boarding-house after a time, almost as bad as the pigs and poultry at the cottage. Also, if we had the boarding-house, father's moral extinction would be complete, but if we lived at the cottage mother's social one would not; she could go and stay with Violet and other people the worst part of the time, while we were shortest of money. Besides all that, there are two other things; I like the cottage best myself, and I believe it to be the best--I know the sort of living life we should live at a boarding-house--and then there is Johnny Gillat." Mr. Ponsonby had no recollection of who Johnny Gillat was, and he did not trouble to ask; Julia's other reason was the one he seized upon. "You like it!" he said; "yes, now we have come to the truth; the person you are considering is yourself; I knew that all along; you need not have troubled to wrap it up in all these grand reasons--consideration for your father, and so on!" "Oh, but think how much better it sounded!" Julia said, with twinkling eyes. Mr. Ponsonby did not see the twinkle; he read Julia a lecture on selfishness and ended up by saying, "You are utterly selfish and ingrain lazy, that's what you are; you don't want to do a stroke of honest work for any one." "Dishonest work is where I shine," Julia told him. "Oh, not scoundrelly dishonesty, company promoting, and so on," (Mr. Ponsonby was on several boards of directors, but he was not a company promoter, still he snorted a little) "I mean real dishonest work; with a little practice I would make such a thief as you do not meet every day in the week." "I can quite believe it," her uncle retorted grimly; "lazy people generally do take to lying and stealing and, as I say, lazy is what you are. Sooner than work for your living, you go and pig in a cottage, because you think that way you can do nothing all day; lead an idle life." "Yes," Julia agreed sweetly; "I think that must be my reason--a nice comfortable idle life with the pigs and poultry, and garden, and cooking, and scrubbing, and two incompetent old men. I really think you must be right." Here it must be recorded, Mr. Ponsonby very nearly lost his temper, and not without justification. Was he not giving time and consideration and (probably) money to help this hopeless family on to its legs again? And was it not more than mortal middle-aged man could bear, not only to be opposed by the only member with any means, but also to be made sly fun of by her? He gave Julia his opinion very sharply, and no doubt she deserved it. But the worst of it was that did not prevent her from exercising the right of the person who is not a beggar to choose.