like her as well as you do now? Then, too, you'll be older."

"I'm old enough, Uncle Teddy, and I love her dearly! I'm as old as
the kings of France used to be when they got married--I read it in
Abbott's histories. But there's the clock striking nine! I must run
or I shall get a tardy mark, and, perhaps, she'll want to see my
certificate sometimes."

So saying, he kissed me on the cheek and set off for school as fast
as his legs could carry him. Oh, Love, omnivorous Love, that sparest
neither the dotard leaning on his staff nor the boy with pantaloons
buttoning on his jacket--omnipotent Love, that, after parents and
teachers have failed, in one instant can make Billy try to become a
good boy!

With both of my nephews hopelessly enamored and myself the confidant
of both, I had my hands full. Daniel was generally dejected and
distrustful; Billy buoyant and jolly. Daniel found it impossible to
overcome his bashfulness; was spontaneous only in sonnets, brilliant
only in bouquets. Billy was always coming to me with pleasant news,
told in his slangy New York boy vernacular. One day he would exclaim:
"Oh, I'm getting on prime! I got such a smile off her this morning as
I went by the window!" Another day he wanted counsel how to get a
valentine to her--because it was too big to shove in a lamp-post, and
she might catch him if he left it on the steps, rang the bell and ran
away. Daniel wrote his own valentine; but, despite its originality,
that document gave him no such comfort as Billy got from his twenty-
five cents' worth of embossed paper, pink cupids and doggerel.
Finally Billy announced to me that he had been to play with Jimmy and
got introduced to his girl.