romantic veil over disappointed, selfish, crossgrained Malcolm
Monroe and delighted in little daughterly attentions to him. She sat
next to him at table, and put her own kindly interpretation upon his
moods.

"I confess I don't understand your tactics with that boy!" he said
now irritably.

"Well, he came in after school, and asked could he go out with the
other boys, and I didn't feel you would disapprove, Pa," Mrs. Monroe
said in a worried voice. "Do eat your dinner before it gets all
cold! Lenny'll be here. You'll get one of your bad headaches ...
here he is!"

For, to the great relief of his mother and sisters, Leonard Monroe
really did break in from the hall at this point, flinging his cap
toward the hat rack with one hand as he opened the door with the
other. A big, well-developed boy of seventeen was Lenny, dearest of
all her children to his mother, her son and her latest-born, and the
secret hope of his father's heart.

"Say--I'm awful sorry to be so late. Gosh! I ran all the way home. I
thought you'd be on the late train, Pa, and I waited to walk up with
you!" said Lenny, falling upon cooling mutton, boiled potatoes
glazed and sticky, and canned corn.

"Where did you wait?" his father asked, laying one of his endless
traps for an untruth.

"Bonestell's," Lenny answered, perceiving and evading it.