He played baseball too well to be a very good boy, and for the sake of his own self-respect maintained an attitude of perpetual revolt against his older sister, who, as much as possible, took the place of the mother, long since dead.

Under her supervision, Howard blacked his own shoes every morning before breakfast, changed his underclothes twice a week, and was dissuaded from playing with the dentist's son who lived three doors below and who had St.Vitus' dance.
His little sister was much more tractable.

She had been christened Alberta, and was called Snooky.

She promised to be pretty when she grew up, but was at this time in that distressing transitional stage between twelve and fifteen; was long-legged, and endowed with all the awkwardness of a colt.

Her shoes were still innocent of heels; but on those occasions when she was allowed to wear her tiny first pair of corsets she was exalted to an almost celestial pitch of silent ecstasy.
The clasp of the miniature stays around her small body was like the embrace of a little lover, and awoke in her ideas that were as vague, as immature and unformed as the straight little figure itself.
When Snooky and Howard had seated themselves, but one chair--at the end of the breakfast-table, opposite Mr.Bessemer--remained vacant.
"Is your sister--is Miss Travis going to have her breakfast now?
Is she got up yet ?" inquired Victorine of Howard and Snooky, as she pushed the cream pitcher out of Howard's reach.