"_Hasn't Jack McKnight got any job? He's a pretty successful loafer if he can go off skiing all around the clock. Why doesn't Laura put an extinguisher on him? How is Laura? I suppose she and Jack are having the time of their young lives this winter._" It was well on in July before Fred's reply to that particular letter reached him, and it made him tell Tom Leighton that Miss Payton--"You remember I told you about her?"--was the finest woman he had ever known. "No sentimental squash about Freddy Payton!" This tribute was given because Fred had said: "_Laura hasn't confided in me, but I'm betting that she'll turn Jack McKnight down. He's not good enough to black her boots, and nowadays women demand that men_--" At this point Howard folded the letter and put it in his pocket. "Laura'll bounce him!" he said to himself; and for the next hour he expatiated to Mr. Leighton upon the charm of common sense in a woman--the woman being Miss Payton, of whom his hearer was getting just a little tired; but he was confused, too. At the end of an hour his gathering perplexity found words: "But I thought it was the pretty cousin you were gone on?" "You did, did you?" Howard said. "Digging shells has affected your brain, Tommy." CHAPTER XII Spring had sauntered very slowly up the Ohio Valley that year. During a cold and slushy April, Frederica paid her advertising bills, and was assured that the Misses Graham would want her to engage an apartment for them in the autumn. Also, she found a flat for a lady with strikingly golden hair, who later departed without paying her rent. This created a disgruntled landlord and instructed the real-estate agent in the range of adjectives disgruntled landlords can use. In May she was almost busy in finding houses on the lake and in the mountains for summer residents; but her traveling expenses to and from the various localities were so large that she had to apply to her man of business for an advance from her allowance. "Look here, Fred," he said, "you can't live on your future commission from Cousin Eliza. Don't you think you've had about enough of this kind of thing?" "I do not!" she said. "You can sponge my head between rounds, but you can't stop the mill. I don't pull off the gloves till I see it through. And I'm twenty-two dollars ahead of last month!"