"Don't be silly, Agatha," returned the mother, with an indifference that took off the point of the query. Her second sister glanced up from a bit of pencil-drawing, then lowered her eyes to the street where the boy friends stood, one with his arm over the other's shoulder. "Think of a Harvard graduate arm-in-arm with-well, a mill-hand! No doubt Jack's father will put him in the mill. I cannot see any sense in a boy of that class taking two years at the academy." On the opposite side of the room were two girls, hardly more than children, busily engaged in ornamenting a box with transfer-pictures. One had a rather haughty mien, as became a Lawrence; the other, pretty, piquant little Sylvie Barry, looked toward the elders, knit her brow, with both thought and indignation visible in its lines, and held her picture absently in her hand. "Why do you listen to that?" asked Irene Lawrence disdainfully.