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“Poor boy! This is a scheme of Aunt Katherine’s, but for our good, not hers, and especially for Cathalina’s benefit. If my experience with Cathalina today is at all suggestive, Auntie’s idea isn’t bad.”

Instead of taking chair and paper, then, Mr. Van Buskirk stretched out upon a couch not far from the windows, and while he closed his eyes and held his wife’s hand as if her nearness rested him, Sylvia outlined Aunt Katherine’s plan for sending Cathalina to a girls’ school.

They had not talked long when the children appeared. Philip at seventeen was already taller than his father. Slender, dark-eyed, his dark brown hair cut in the latest fashion, he looked quite the dandy in his evening clothes. Cathalina, dressed as a little girl rather than a young lady, wore a lacy white frock, simple and pretty.

“There is your Aunt Knickerbocker, I think,” said Philip Senior, rising quickly as the bell rang. “Go to meet her yourself, Phil; she’ll appreciate the attention.” But Philip had already started to the hall.