Elizabeth surveyed her friend dubiously. "Perhaps you are not altogether sorry on the whole," she said, "though the children have behaved surprisingly well--for them." "The baby is a dear," agreed Miss Tripp warmly; "but I'm afraid I didn't succeed very well with Robert. It seems to me the child's finer feelings have been blunted someway. When I spoke seriously to him about his unkindness to Carroll the other day, he made up a face at me. 'You can't whip me,' he said, ''cause you aren't my mother.' "'Indeed I could whip, or hurt you in some other way, if I chose,' I told him, 'and if you were a stupid little donkey who wouldn't go, or a dog who couldn't be made to obey, I should certainly feel like switching you; but you are a boy, and you are fast growing to be a man. I am afraid, though, that you are not growing to be a gentleman.' "'I guess I'm a gentleman, too,' he said rudely. 'My grandfather's a rich man, an' we're goin' to have all his money when he dies. We ain't poor like you.'" "Shocking!" exclaimed Elizabeth; "what did you say to the child?" "I explained to him what a gentle-man really was; then I told him about the knights of the Round Table. He is not really a bad child, Elizabeth; but he will be, if---- I wonder if I might venture to talk plainly to his mother?" "You may talk and she will listen, quite without impatience," Elizabeth said, with a shrug of her shoulders. "But Marian is somewhat--opinionated, to put it mildly, and she is very, very sure that her own way is best. So I'm afraid it wouldn't do any good." She smiled speculatively as she looked at her friend. It seemed to her that Evelyn was looking particularly young and pretty. There was a faint flush of colour in her pale cheeks and her eyes shone girlishly bright under their curtain of thick brown lashes. A sudden thought crossed Elizabeth's mind. And without pausing to think, she put it into words. "Evelyn," she began, her own cheeks glowing, "I want you to stay with us over night; I really can't let you go off so suddenly, without saying good-bye to--to Sam, or--anybody," she finished lamely. "You must stay to dinner, anyway; I insist upon that much, and I will send you to the station in a cab." Evelyn shook her head. "It is very good of you, Betty," she said; "but I really must go this afternoon. Mother will expect me." "Does--Mr. Hickey know you are going?" demanded Elizabeth, abandoning her feeble efforts at finesse. The faint colour in Evelyn's cheeks deepened to a painful scarlet. She met Elizabeth's questioning gaze bravely. "No--o," she hesitated; "but----" She paused, apparently to straighten out with care the fingers of her shabby little gloves; then she looked up, a spark of defiance in her blue eyes. "Elizabeth," she said, "I think I ought to tell you that Mr. Hickey has asked me to marry him; but I----" "Oh, Evelyn! How glad I am!" "I refused him," said Miss Tripp concisely.