her book, "There's no sense in all this killing--I wish we'd kept out
of it."

"Wasn't there any sense," said little Jean from the hearth rug, "in
Bunker Hill and Valley Forge?"

Hilda evaded that. "Anyhow, I'm glad they've stopped playing the
'Star-Spangled Banner' at the movies. I'm tired of standing up."

Jean voiced her scorn. "I'd stand until I dropped, rather than miss a
note of it."

Doctor McKenzie interposed:

"'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
'To talk of many things,
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--'"

"Oh, Daddy," Jean reproached him, "I should think you might be serious."

"I am not just twenty--and I have learned to bank my fires. And you
mustn't take Hilda too literally. She doesn't mean all that she says,
do you, Hilda?"

He patted Miss Merritt on the shoulder as he went out. Jean hated
that. And Hilda's blush.

With the Doctor gone, Hilda shut herself up in the office to balance
her books.