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 like Oliver because he is the sort of person who does take hazards. If he weren't, you would despise him."

"Of course," she replied. "If there were real occasion for it, I should despise him if he were not the first to risk his life. But he does it now—and these other things, I am convinced—mainly because he knows how much I dislike them. I don't see what possesses him."

"What other things does he do, Cornelia? Oliver is at one of the 'dangerous ages.' And perhaps his children are beginning to influence him. You mustn't forget that Dorothy and Oliver Junior have reached an age at which offspring frequently have a very unsettling effect upon their parents."

"Well, listen. You know how much I dislike what people call 'the modern girl' and all her works and ways?"

"Yes."

"And you know how hard I have tried to keep Dorothy in her old-fashioned sweetness and innocence?"

"I don't see what there is old-fashioned in Dorothy," I said. "But she is sweet. I supposed God had made her so, and that the work couldn't