He did think it over; but Blair had never been taught the one regal word of life, he had never learned to say "I _ought_." Therefore it needed more talks with Mrs. Richie, more days with Elizabeth--David, confound him! wouldn't come, because he had to pack, but Nannie tagged on behind; it needed the "bolstering up" of much approval on the part of the onlookers, and much self-approval, too, before the screwing-up process reached a point where he went into his mother's office in the Works and told her that if she was ready to take him on, he was ready to go to work. Mrs. Maitland was absolutely dumb with happiness. He wanted to go to work! He asked to be taken on! "What do you say _now_, friend Ferguson?" she jeered; "you thought he was going to play at his painting for another year, and you wanted me to put his nose to the grindstone, and make him earn the money to pay for that fool picture. Isn't it better to have him come to it of his own accord? I'd pay for ten pictures, if they made him want to go to work. As for his painting, it will be his father over again. My husband had his fancies about it, too, but he gave it all up when he married me; marriage always gives a man common sense,--marriage and business. That's how it's going to be with Blair," she ended complacently. "Blair has brains; I've always said so." Robert Ferguson did not deny the brains, but he was as astonished as she. "I believe," he challenged Mrs. Richie, "_you_ put him up to it? You always could wind that boy round your finger." "I did talk to him," she confessed; it was their last interview, for she and David were starting East that night, and Mr. Ferguson had come in to say good-by. "I talked to him--a little. Mrs. Maitland's disappointment about him went to my heart. Besides, I am very fond of Blair; there is a great deal of good in him. You are prejudiced." "No I'm not. I admit that as his mother says, 'he's no fool'; but that only makes his dilly-dallying so much the worse. Still, I believe that if she were to lose all her money, and he were to fall very much in love and be refused, he might amount to something. But it would need both things to make a man of him." Robert Ferguson sighed, and Mrs. Richie left the subject of the curative effect of unsuccessful love, with nervous haste. "I am going to charge Elizabeth and Nannie to do all they can to make it pleasant for him, so that he won't find the Works too terrible," she said. At which reflection upon the Works, Mr. Ferguson barked so fiercely that she felt quite at ease with him. But his barking did not prevent her from telling the girls that business would be very hard for Blair, and they must cheer him up: "Do try to amuse him! You know it is going to be very stupid for him in Mercer." Nannie, of course, needed no urging; as for Elizabeth, she was a little contemptuous. Oh yes; she would do what she could, she said. "Of course, I'm awfully fond of Blair, but--"