"You are getting extravagant."

"I hardly think so, aunt, and I don't believe you would think so, either,
if you knew all the circumstances."

"Circumstances do not alter cases when a boy is a spendthrift."

"I won't argue with you, aunt. You have your ideas and I have mine. Of
course, I bought the stickpin, but it was with money I had earned."

The aunt sniffed in a vague way. The boy left the house, looking irritated
and unhappy.

Frank Jordan lived in the little town of Tipton with his aunt, Miss Tabitha
Brown. His father was an invalid, and at the present time was in the South,
seeking to recuperate his failing health, and Mrs. Jordan was with him as
his nurse. They had left Frank in charge of the aunt, who was a miserly,
fault-finding person, and for nearly a month the lad had not enjoyed life
very greatly.

There were two thoughts that filled Frank's mind most of the time. The
first was that he would give about all he had to leave his aunt's house.
The other was a wish that his father would write to him soon, telling him,
as he had promised to do, that he had decided that his son could leave
Tipton and go to boarding-school.

What with the constant nagging of his sour-visaged relative, the worry over
his sick father, and the suspense as to his own future movements, Frank did
not have a very happy time of it. He felt a good deal like a boy shut up in
a prison. His aunt used her authority severely. She kept him away from