"That's the worst of trusting a boy to a good woman," he barked,
knocking off his glasses angrily; "but I'll do what I can to
thwart you! I'll make sure there isn't any young-eyed cherubin
business about David. He has got to go to boarding-school, and
learn something besides his prayers. If somebody doesn't rescue
him from apron-strings, he'll be a 'very, very good young man'--
and then may the Lord have mercy on his soul!"

"I didn't know anybody could be too good," Mrs. Richie ventured.

"A woman can't be too good, but a man oughtn't to be," her
landlord instructed her.

David's mother was too bewildered by such sentiments to protest--
although, indeed, Mr. Ferguson need not have been quite so
concerned about David's "goodness." This freckled, clear-eyed
youngster, with straight yellow hair and good red cheeks, was
just an honest, growly boy, who dropped his clothes about on the
floor of his room, and whined over his lessons, and blustered
largely when out of his mother's hearing; furthermore, he had
already experienced his first stogie--with a consequent pallor
about the gills that scared Mrs. Richie nearly to death. But
Robert Ferguson's jeering reference to apron-strings resulted in
his being sent to boarding school. Blair went with him, "rescued"
from the goodwoman regime of Cherry-pie's instruction by Mr.
Ferguson's advice to Mrs. Maitland; "although," Robert Ferguson
admitted, candidly, "he doesn't need it as poor David does; his
mother wouldn't know how to make a Miss Nancy of him, even if she
wanted to!" Then, with a sardonic guess at Mrs. Richie's unspoken