Her face grew red, but looking up her clear gray eyes met his unflinchingly. "Well, I think you're the very brightest boy that I ever knew, anywhere, and that it would be a very easy thing for you to make your mark in the world in any way you pleased, if you would only make up your mind to do it. But it's lazy of you to loaf around all winter doing nothing, not even studying by yourself, and it's selfish to disappoint your father when he is so ambitious for you, and it's—yes, it's wicked for you to waste opportunities that some boys would almost give their eyes for. There!"
"Whew!" whistled Phil, getting up to pace the floor, with his hands in his pockets. "That's the worst roast I ever got."
"Well, you asked for it," said Joyce. "You said for me to tell you honestly what I thought."
"What would you have me to do?" asked Phil, impatiently, anxious to justify himself. "A fellow with any spirit couldn't get down and beg to be taken back to school, when he knew all the time that he was only partly in the wrong, and that it was unjust and arbitrary of the officers to require what they did."
"That isn't the only school in the country," said Joyce, quietly, "and for a fellow six feet tall, and seventeen years old, a regular athlete in appearance, to wait for somebody to lead him back to his books does seem a little ridiculous, doesn't it?"
"Confound it!" he began, angrily, then stopped, for Joyce was smiling up into his face with a friendliness he could not resist, and there was more than censure in her eyes. There was sincere admiration for the handsome boy whom she found so entertaining and companionable.
"Now don't get uppity," she laughed. "I'm only saying to you what Elsie would say if she were here."
Phil shrugged his shoulders. "Not much!" he exclaimed. "You don't know Elsie. She thinks her big brother is perfection. She has always stood up for me in the face of everything. Daddy never failed to let me off easy when she patched up the peace between us. She wouldn't rake me over the coals the way you do."
Joyce liked the expression that crossed his face as he spoke of Elsie, and the gentler tone in which he said Daddy.
"All the more reason, then," she answered, "that somebody else should do the raking. I hope I haven't been officious. It's only what I would say to Jack under the same circumstances. I'm so used to preaching to the boys that I couldn't help sailing in when you gave me leave. I won't do it any more, though. See! Here is the design you suggested. I've finished it."