hair, and a vista of waving green boughs showing through the open
window behind her.

"What are you two doing here at this hour?" said Sidney, laying down
her pen and leaning back in her chair as if glad of a moment's rest.
"Why, Billy!" she added in admiring tones, "let me see you! How
very, VERY nice you look!"

For the little fellow was dressed in a new sailor suit that was a
full size too large for him, his wild mop had been cut far too
close, and a large new hat and new shoes were much in evidence.

"D'you think he looks all right?" said Barry with an anxious
wistfulness that went straight to her heart. "He looks better,
doesn't he? I've been fixing him up."

"And free sailor waists, and stockings, and nighties," supplemented
Billy, also anxious for her approval.

"He looks lovely!" said Sidney, enthusiastically, even while she was
mentally raising the collar of his waist, and taking an inch or two
off the trousers. She lifted the child up to sit on his father's
desk, and kissed the top of his little cropped head.

"We may not express ourselves very fluently," said Barry, who was
seated in his own revolving chair and busily opening and shutting
the drawers of his desk, "but we appreciate the interest beautiful
ladies take in our manners and morals, and the new tooth-brushes
they buy us--"