Neither of us said anything memorable, and presently he went away to his room, his mother going up with him. His father followed to the foot of the stairs, then drifted away to his study where he could lie in wait for Cyrus on his way down. Pretty soon his mother came into the "office" they've given me--it's just off the drawing-room so that I can be summoned to it the instant any one comes to see Mrs. Burke. [Illustration: CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD] "I've let his pa have him for a while," she explained, as she came in. I saw that she was full of her boy, so I turned away from my books. She rambled on about him for an hour, not knowing what she was saying, but just pouring out whatever came into her head. "His pa has always said I'd spoil him," was one of the things I remember, "but I don't think love ever spoiled anybody." Also she told me that his real name wasn't Cyrus but Bucyrus, the town his father originally came from--it's somewhere in Ohio, I think she said. "And," said she, "whenever I want to cut his comb I just give him his name. He tames right down." Also that he has used all sorts of things on the cowlick without success. "There it is, still," said she, "as cross-grained as ever. I like it about the best of anything, except maybe his long legs. I'm a duck-leg myself, and his pa--well, _his_ legs 'just about reach the ground,' as Lincoln said, and after that the less said the sooner forgot. But Cyrus has _legs_. And his cowlick matches a cowlick in his disposition--a kind of gnarly knot that you can't cut nor saw through nor get round no way. It's been the saving of him, he's so good-natured and easy otherwise." And she went on to tell how generous he is, "the only generous small-eared person I've ever known, though I must say I have my doubts about ears as a sign. There was Bill Slayback in our town, with ears like a jack-rabbit, and whenever he had a poor man do a job of work about his place he used to pay him with a ninety-day note and then shave the note." I was glad when she hurried away at the sound of Cyrus in the hall. For a huge lot of work there'll be for me to do until I get things in some sort of order. I've opened a regular set of books to keep the social accounts in. Of course, nobody who goes in for society, on the scale we're going into it, could get along without social bookkeeping as big as a bank's. I pity the official women in the high places who can't afford secretaries; they must spend hours every night posting and fussing with their account-books when they ought to be in bed asleep. On my second day here "pa" Burke explained what his plans were. "We wish to make our house," said he, "the most distinguished social center in Washington, next to the White House--and very democratic. Above all, Miss Talltowers, democratic." "He don't mean that he wants us to do our own work and send out the wash," drawled "ma" Burke, who was sitting by. "But democratic, with fourteen servants in livery."