bragging way?"

"He'll be right if he does," answered her sister.
"It's the way father always does talk. You never noticed
it so much, that's all. And I guess if he can't make
allowance for father's bragging, he'll be a little too good.
I enjoyed hearing the Colonel go on."

"I know you did," returned Irene in distress.
Then she sighed. "Didn't you think he looked very nice?"

"Who? The Colonel?" Penelope had caught up the habit
of calling her father so from her mother, and she used
his title in all her jocose and perverse moods.

"You know very well I don't mean papa," pouted Irene.
"Oh! Mr. Corey! Why didn't you say Mr. Corey if you meant
Mr. Corey? If I meant Mr. Corey, I should say Mr. Corey.
It isn't swearing! Corey, Corey, Co----"

Her sister clapped her hand over her mouth "Will you HUSH,
you wretched thing?" she whimpered. "The whole house can
hear you."

"Oh yes, they can hear me all over the square.
Well, I think he looked well enough for a plain youth,
who hadn't taken his hair out of curl-papers for some time."

"It WAS clipped pretty close," Irene admitted; and they
both laughed at the drab effect of Mr. Corey's skull,