“I should think it was high-priced pleasure if I had to take it on those terms.”

“You have no idea what prices men are willing to pay for what they desire.  Faery even with my means would seem a mere bagatelle to most young fellows of my set.”

“I would really like to know what your means are,” his mother said, playfully.

“Principally my profession, when I get it; capital health, and a world full of work to be done by some one.  I shall stand as good a chance as any one to get my share of the world’s rewards for good work accomplished.”

“Bravo, Mr. Hubert.  I only wish I was a boy so I might go to work too,” I cried.

“Hush, the master will hear you.  I told you he was fastidious about ladies’ deportment.  Even the housemaids and cook catch the infection.  I certainly pity his poor ward.”

“Please do not waste pity on me; if Mr. Winthrop is not nice, I shall go to Boston or New York and teach German in some boarding-school.”

A low, long whistle was his only reply.

“Hubert, have you forgotten yourself?  Mr. Winthrop will think we have got demoralized.”

“Forgive me, mother mine, but Miss Selwyn astounded me.  Fancy her working for her bread.”

“And liberty,” I said, merrily.

“You have got an instalment of that already, permission to dispense the fruit and vegetables.  The work has been given as a punishment for making acquaintance with common people.”

“That will be a pleasure; see what I am already doing for some of them.”  I took my forgotten knitting work from my pocket.

“I deeply regret I must so soon leave Oaklands.  I really think you will make things livelier here than they have been since Mr. Winthrop was a lad.  Just for one moment, mother, try to imagine his disgust when he finds his high-bred ward knitting socks for Dan Blake’s little monkeys.”

“Dan Blake has no children, Hubert,” his mother said, gravely; “and I am not going to trouble myself about what may never happen.  It is not necessary for Mr. Winthrop to know how his ward spends her spare time and pocket money.”

“But he would as soon think of exchanging civilities with his own dumb animals as with those folk on the Mill Road; and, yet, right under his nose these little arrangements getting manufactured!  It is carrying the war into the enemy’s camp with a vengeance.”

“Is that a specimen of your college conversation, Hubert?  If so, you might better remain at Oaklands.”

“Surely, mother; you don’t expect us to talk like a sewing society or select gathering of maiden ladies,” Hubert said with some disgust.  “Fancy a lot of young fellows picking and choosing their words as if they were a company of prigs.”

“If every word we utter continues to vibrate in the air until the final wreck of matter, as some scientists suppose, surely we can’t be too careful of our words, my son.”