little in watercolors, sketch now and then, and poke about the
studios when the artistic fit comes on.?
“How is the music??
“More flourishing. I don’t practice much, but sing a good deal in
company. Set up a guitar last summer and went troubadouring
round in great style. The girls like it, and it’s jolly among the
fellows.?
“Are you studying anything??
“Well, I have some lawbooks on my table good, big, wise-looking
chaps and I take a turn at them semioccasionally when pleasure
palls or parents chide. But I doubt if I do more than learn what ‘a
allybi’ is this year,” and a sly laugh in Charlie’s eye suggested that
he sometimes availed himself of this bit of legal knowledge.
“What do you do then??
“Fair catechist, I enjoy myself. Private theatricals have been the
rage of late, and I have won such laurels that I seriously think of
adopting the stage as my profession.?
“Really!” cried Rose, alarmed.
“Why not? If I must go to work, isn’t that as good as anything??
“Not without more talent than I think you possess. With genius one
can do anything without it one had better let the stage alone.?
“There’s a quencher for the ‘star of the goodlie companie’ to which
I belong. Mac hasn’t a ray of genius for anything, yet you admire
him for trying to be an M.D.,” cried Charlie, rather nettled at her
words.
“It is respectable, at all events, and I’d rather be a second-rate
doctor than a second-rate actor. But I know you don’t mean it, and
only say so to frighten me.?
“Exactly. I always bring it up when anyone begins to lecture and it
works wonders. Uncle Mac turns pale, the aunts hold up their
hands in holy horror, and a general panic ensues. Then I
magnanimously promise not to disgrace the family and in the first
burst of gratitude the dear souls agree to everything I ask, so peace
is restored and I go on my way rejoicing.?
“Just the way you used to threaten to run off to sea if your mother
objected to any of your whims. You are not changed in that
respect, though you are in others. You had great plans and projects
once, Charlie, and now you seem to be contented with being a
‘jack of all trades and master of none’ “.
“Boyish nonsense! Time has brought wisdom, and I don’t see the
sense of tying myself down to one particular thing and grinding
away at it year after year. People of one idea get so deucedly
narrow and tame, I’ve no patience with them. Culture is the thing,
and the sort one gets by ranging over a wide field is the easiest to
acquire, the handiest to have, and the most successful in the end.
At any rate, it is the kind I like and the only kind I intend to bother
myself about.?
With this declaration, Charlie smoothed his brow, clasped his
hands over his head, and, leaning back, gently warbled the chorus
of a college song as if it expressed his views of life better than he
could:
“While our rosy fillets shed
Blushes o’er each fervid head,
With many a cup and many a smile
The festal moments we beguile.?
“Some of my saints here were people of one idea, and though they
were not very successful from a worldly point of view while alive,
they were loved and canonized when dead,” said Rose, who had
been turning over a pile of photographs on the table and just then
found her favorite, St. Francis, among them.
“This is more to my taste. Those worn-out, cadaverous fellows
give me the blues, but here’s a gentlemanly saint who takes things
easy and does good as he goes along without howling over his own
sins or making other people miserable by telling them of theirs.”
And Charlie laid a handsome St. Martin beside the brown-frocked
monk.
Rose looked at both and understood why her cousin preferred the
soldierly figure with the sword to the ascetic with his crucifix. One
was riding bravely through the world in purple and fine linen, with
horse and hound and squires at his back; and the other was in a