"I suppose you've lots of friends of your own age?" Jeff observed. "Not as many as I ought to have. You see, I've lived very quietly with my brother for six years now, except for the time I spent at a girls' school in Baltimore. Since I came home from there I've not been very strong, and Thorne has kept me very quiet, until he sent me North to school last fall." "You're so well now you'll be going about a lot. Any young people in the house with you? It's a boarding-house, isn't it?" "Yes, a small one. There are no young people in it except Mrs. Livingstone's son." "How old a fellow?" "Twenty-one, I believe." "I suppose you're great friends with him?" said Jeff suspiciously. Evelyn looked at him quickly and laughed, flushing a little. "Why, we're naturally very good friends," she said. "Evelyn," said Jeff, sitting up straight again, "I'm absolutely bursting to tell you some news, and I can't seem to lead up to it. I've got to bring it out flat. The only thing I'm anxious about is whether it's going to be as good news to you as it is to me." She looked at him with a quickening of her pulses, his expression had become so very eager. "Please don't keep me in suspense," she begged. "Well"--Jeff did his best to speak coolly, as if the matter were really of no great importance, after all--"you know it's been a question with me all along as to just what I was going to do when I got out of college. I wanted tremendously to get to work, and a lot of the usual things didn't seem to appeal to me at all. I haven't enough of a scientific turn to go into any of the engineering courses. I didn't care for a mercantile berth. In fact, while my brother Lanse has had his future cut out for him since he was fourteen, and Just, at sixteen, is body and soul in for electrical engineering, I've been the family problem. Father's had the sense not to assert his wishes for a moment. He saw from the start, I suppose, that the family traditions were not for me--I could never begin by studying law and end by wearing the ermine, as a lot of my grandfathers and uncles have done. So--" Jeff paused and drew a long breath. He had been looking off down the river as he talked, but now he brought his eyes back to Evelyn's face, and his spirits leaped exultantly as he saw with what eager attention she was listening.