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 frowning. "I like the old soul," he announced, "but, say, she's awful leaky around the eyes!"

"So you'd be if you were seventy years old and folks were—were kind to you and—and all that sort of thing," replied Laurie gruffly and vaguely. "Folks get that way when they're old; sort of grateful and tearful. They can't help it, I guess!"

It was still well short of supper-time, and so they stopped at Bob's to see the tennis-court. The surface layer was almost finished, and two sturdy posts for the net, startlingly, shiningly green, had been sunk. While they admired, Mr. Starling joined them from the house, and Laurie thanked him for his assistance with the quarry company.

"Glad to have helped, Laurie," replied Bob's father. "And that reminds me. Seen the pear-trees?"

"Pear-trees? No, sir. Not to—to notice them."

"Come and look at them." Mr. Starling led Laurie around the corner of the new court and along the further walk to where a few fruit-trees, their branches still bare, occupied one corner of