good-looking, intelligent and interesting boy. He sat by her on the
sacred brocaded sofa while she brightly questioned him, brightly
answering her with aptness and good sense; his parents beaming on the
pair, even the father content to play second fiddle to give the son his
chance. Here, at any rate, thought Deb, was material to hand for the
work she had come to do.

"I love boys," she remarked--and so she did, as some people love dogs
--"and Robert and I are going to be great friends; aren't we, Robert?"

"It is very good of you to say so, aunt," Robert replied, with
characteristic propriety.

"But, do you know, I don't think I shall call you Robert," she went on.
"It has a prim sound"--but it was the primness of himself that she
wanted to break down--"and it doesn't suit a boy of your tender years.
I think I'll call you Bob, if you don't mind."

"I wish you would," he adroitly answered her.

"What is your bent towards, in the way of a career, Bob?"

He said he thought the law--to be a judge some day.

"You don't care for station life?"

"Oh, he does," his father eagerly interposed. "He loves it. But
he has had so few chances--"

"Which is your school, Bob?"