He may be rich and lousy-handsome and all that, but he’s not fit for you to wipe your oldest shoes on, not my sister! He’s drunk half the time, and he goes with the lowest kind of company. Girls, too; girls worse than he is, even. I’ve seen him, and I know what I’m talking about!”

Jennifer turned toward her brother seriously.

“But why the warning, brother? I don’t see Peter anywhere around, do you? And I don’t seem to have been breaking my neck to run after him, do I?”

“That’s all right, Jen, but I came in by the back stairs last night and went up to get my wallet I’d left in my room when I changed my coat, and I couldn’t help seeing that chump standing up there on the stairs, daring to follow you up into our private rooms, and saying things to you about how to manage our children and about marrying you and taking you out of it all to play around in Europe and let somebody else take the penalty, and I got plenty mad. Talking to my sister that way! And I almost came out of my room and kicked that poor fish downstairs. I did! Daring to talk that way to my sister! If it hadn’t been that we were running away and I didn’t want to get into any scrapes that would hinder us, I certainly would have given him plenty! And I would, too, anyhow, if you hadn’t been there. You ought to hear the way he talks about some of the girls he takes out! The big, fat, rotten old fish!”

Suddenly Jennifer put her face down on the wheel and laughed! She wanted to cry, too, but she laughed. This was her young brother talking this way about defending her! This was the brother so much younger than herself that she had felt she must care for him! And here he was trying to care for her, warning her against one of the most admired and sought-after young men in the whole city! It gave her a thrill to have Jeremy care. It seemed almost as if it might be the spirit of her dead father come alive in Jerry to protect her, and it was very precious and sweet to her. It brought those unbidden, undesired tears to her eyes. But she laughed, there in the dark, and brushed the tears aside.

“Jerry,” she said, laying one hand across the sleeping Robin to her brother’s hand, “you needn’t ever worry about me and Peter. I told Peter last night just where to get off. I told him I had no idea of running off and leaving my family to shift for themselves, and that if I were going to get married I certainly would never marry him! But I do appreciate your warning, and of course I didn’t know these things you’ve told me about him or I never would even have gone out with him. I don’t like men of that sort, not even boys of that sort who are too young to know better. And of course I wouldn’t be angry at you warning me. I think I can pretty well promise you I’m not going to lie down on my job and get married to anybody, at least not unless you approve. And I think it will be a long time before I ask you to approve anybody. Besides, if you only knew in whose class you’ve just put yourself!” She laughed again. “Aunt Majesta! Can you beat it! You arranging for my marriage! You don’t know that that was the thing that made me the maddest in their talk yesterday, when I heard those two old hawks marrying me off to Peter! They seemed to think that would be a lot off their hands when they accomplished that. They didn’t know that even if I had been particularly crazy about him, which I wasn’t, their ideas would have made me actually hate him.”

“Great Scott! Jen, I withdraw all my remarks, at least while you continue of that mind, though I will own that if you ever changed and got to favoring Peter, he’d have me to deal with, and I don’t mean maybe!”

“Well, you can just put that thought out of your head, brother. If that man comes around I’ll call you in to protect me. But really, Jerry, I’m not wanting to marry anyone, at least not for years and years. And not then unless I find a man as fine as Daddy.”

“Righto! When you find one, let me know, and I’ll withdraw my objections. You will look a long time before you find a man as fine as Dad!”

“Yes,” said Jennifer with a sad little sigh, “though I hope you’ll be like him someday.”

“Couldn’t have a better model,” said Jeremy gravely. “Here’s hoping. But honestly, Jen, I don’t know any boys myself that are even started that way. They don’t come that way nowadays, I guess.”

“I’ve only met one I thought might be like that someday,” said Jennifer with a serious voice.

“One?” said Jeremy, with a quick look toward her.

“Oh, it was long ago,” said Jennifer in a dreamy voice. “I was just a little girl, and he never thought anything of me, of course. He was a great deal older than I was, five years perhaps. But I remember thinking at the time that Daddy must have been a boy like that, and I’ve often thought about him since and wondered why the boys I knew afterwards were not like him.”

“Say, this is some revelation, sister. Who was this paragon? I’d like to give him the once-over and see if my conclusions match up with yours.”

“You don’t know him, Jerry.