George Junior was a care, too, in these days at the non-committal, unenthusiastic age of fourteen, when all the vices in the world, finger on lip, form a bright escort for waking or sleeping hours, and the tenderest and most tactful of maternal questions slips from the shell of boyish silence and gruffness unanswered.  Full of apprehension and eagerness, Alice watched her only son; she could not give him every hour of her busy days; she would have given him every instant if she could.  He was a good boy, but he was human.  Dressed for dinner and the theatre, his mother would look into the children’s sitting-room to find Mary reading, George reading, Martha, very conscious of being there on sufferance, also reading virtuously and attentively.

“Good-night, my darlings!  You’re going to bed promptly at nine, aren’t you, Mary—­and Gogo, too?  You know we were all late last night,” Alice would say, coming in.

“I am!” Mary would give her mother her sunny smile.  “Leslie Perry is going to be here to-morrow night, anyway, and we’re going to Thomas Prince’s skating party in the afternoon, aren’t we, Mother?”

“Thomas Prince, the big boob!” Gogo might comment without bitterness.

“He’s not a big boob, either, is he, Mother?” Mary was swift in defence.  “He’s not nearly such a boob as Tubby Butler or Sam Moulton!”

“Gosh, that’s right—­knock Tubby!” Gogo would mumble.

“Oh, my darling boy, and my darling girl!” Alice, full of affection and distress, would look from one to the other.  Gogo, standing near his mother, usually had a request.

“They’re all over at Sam’s to-night.  Gosh! they’re going to have fun!”

“Father said ‘not again this week,’” Mary might chant.

“Mary!” Alice’s reproachful look would silence her daughter; she would put an arm about her son.

“What is it to-night, dear?”

“Oh, nothing much!” Gogo would fling up his dark head impatiently.

“Just Tubby and Sam?”

“I guess so,” gruffly.

“But Daddy feels—­” Alice would stop short in perplexity.  Why shouldn’t he go?  She had known Mrs. Moulton from the days when they both were brides, the Moultons’ house was near, and it was dull for Gogo here, under the sitting-room lamp.  If he had only been as contented as Mary, who, with a good time to remember from yesterday, and another to look forward to to-morrow, was perfectly happy to-night.  But boys were different.  Sam was a trustworthy little fellow, but Alice did not so much like Tubby Butler.  And George did not like to have Gogo away from the house at night.  She would smile into the boy’s gloomy eyes.

“Couldn’t you just read to-night, my son, or perhaps Mary would play rum with you?  Wouldn’t that be better, and a long night’s sleep, than going over to Sam’s every night?”

But she would leave a disappointed and sullen boy behind her; his disgusted face would haunt her throughout the entire evening.