“I ’ve been thinking about Edgar, Polly, and I have a plan, but I shall not think of urging it against your will; you are the mistress of the house nowadays.”

“I know what it is,” sighed Polly.  “You think we ought to take another boarder.  A desire for boarders is like a taste for strong drink; once acquired, it is almost impossible to eradicate it from the system.”

“I do think we ought to take this boarder.  Not because it will make a difference in our income, but I am convinced that if Edgar can have a pleasant home and our companionship just at this juncture, he will break away from his idle habits, and perhaps his bad associations, and take a fresh start.  I feel that we owe it to our dear old friends to do this for them, if we can.  Of course, if it proves too great a tax upon you, or if I should have another attack of illness, it will be out of the question; but who knows? perhaps two or three months will accomplish our purpose.  He can pay me whatever he has been paying in Berkeley, less the amount of his fare to and fro.  We might have little Yung Lee again, and Mrs. Howe will be glad to rent her extra room.  It has a fireplace, and will serve for both bedroom and study, if we add a table and student-lamp.”

“I don’t believe he will come,” said Polly.  “We are all very well as a diversion, but as a constancy we should pall upon him.  I never could keep up to the level I have been maintaining for the last twenty-four hours, that is certain.  It is nothing short of degradation to struggle as hard to amuse a boy as I have struggled to amuse Edgar.  I don’t believe he could endure such exhilaration week after week, and I am very sure it would kill me.  Besides, he will fancy he is going to be watched and reported at headquarters in Santa Barbara!”

“I think very likely you are right; but perhaps I can put the matter so that it will strike him in some other light.”

“Very well, mamacita; I ’m resigned.  It will break up all our nice little two-ing, but we will be his guardian angel.  I will be his guardian and you his angel, and oh, how he would dislike it if he knew it!  But wait until odious Mr. Tony meets him to-night!  What business is it of his if my hair is red!  When he chaffs him for breaking his appointment, I dare say we shall never see him again.”

“You are so jolly comfortable here!  This house is the next best thing to mother,” said Edgar, with boyish heartiness, as he stood on the white goatskin with his back to the Olivers’ cheerful fireplace.

It was Wednesday evening of the next week.  Polly was clearing away the dinner things, and Edgar had been arranging Mrs. Oliver’s chair and pillows and footstool like the gentle young knight he was by nature.

What wonder that all the fellows, even “smirking Tony,” liked him and sought his company?  He who could pull an oar, throw a ball, leap a bar, ride a horse, or play a game of skill as if he had been born for each particular occupation,—­what wonder that the ne’er-do-wells and idlers and scamps and dullards battered at his door continually and begged him to leave his books and come out and “stir up things”!