The boy is a nice boy--a bully good boy, anybody can see that--and I like boys, that's all.

When he began trotting round after me, we got to be chums in a way, but it would have been the same with any other boy who had come to the house--especially," he added with a clean blow given straight from the shoulder, "if he'd been a decent chap that a parcel of women were making into a muff." For a minute anger, righteous anger, kept her silent; then she responded with stateliness: "I suppose I have a right to decide how my son shall be brought up ?" He met her stern gaze with a smile; and in the midst of her resentment she was distinctly aware of the impeccable honesty of his judgment.

The peculiar breeziness she had always thought of as "Western" sounded in his voice as he answered: "By George, I'm not so sure that you have!" Before his earnestness she felt her anger melt slowly away.

The basic reasonableness of her character--her passion to investigate experience, to examine facts, to search for truth--this temperamental attitude survived the superficial wave of indignation which had swept over her.
"So you think I am making a mistake with Archibald ?" she asked quietly; and growing tired of standing, she sank instinctively into one of the capacious leather-covered chairs by the table.

"But the question is--are you able to judge ?" "Well, I'm a man, and I hate to see a boy coddled.