see Aunt Johanna cleaning the stairs, and getting up to light the
kitchen fire of winter mornings, as she will do if we have not a
servant to do it for her. Don't you see, Ascott?"

"Oh, I see," answered the boy, carelessly, "But don't bother me,
please. Domestic affairs are for women, not men."

Ascott was eighteen, and just about to pass out of his caterpillar
state as a doctor's apprentice-lad into the chrysalis condition of a
medical student in London. "But," with sudden reflection, "I hope she
won't be in my way. Don't let her meddle with any of my books and
things."

"No; you need not be afraid. I have put them all into your room. I
myself cleared your rubbish out of the box closet."

"The box-closet! Now, really, I can't stand--"

"She is to sleep in the box-closet; where else could she sleep?" said
Hilary, resolutely, though inly quaking a little; for somehow, the
merry, handsome, rather exacting lad bad acquired considerable
influence in this household of women. "You must put up with the loss
of your 'den.' Ascott; it would be a great shame if you did not, for
the sake of Aunt Johanna and the rest of us."

"Um!" grumbled the boy, who, though he was not a bad fellow at heart,
had a boy's dislike to "putting up" with the slightest inconvenience.

"Well, it won't last long. I shall be off shortly. What a jolly life
I'll have in London, Aunt Hilary! I'll see Mr. Lyon there too."