time he grows up.'"
"But that isn't sound," said Miss Exeter, quite shocked at the sketch she was hearing. "Habits formed in youth----"
"Of course it isn't sound," said Wood. "And as a matter of fact, my sister never thought of it until I objected. She evolves these theories merely for the sake of protecting her children.
Oddly enough, she not only doesn't want to change them herself but she doesn't want any one else to change them. Three years ago I engaged in a life-and-death struggle with her to get Durland--the boy--to boarding school. She advanced the following arguments against it:
First, that he was a perfectly normal, manly boy and did not need to go;
second, that he was of a peculiar, artistic, sensitive temperament and would be wrecked by being made to conform to boarding-school standards;
third, that none of the successful men of the country had gone to boarding school;
fourth, that success was the last thing she desired for any son of hers;
fifth, that she did not wish to remove him from the benefits of my daily influence; and sixth, that I was a person of no judgment and absolutely wrong about its being wise for a boy to go to school."