"Philip Sidney, don't be idiotic," said Mrs. Fabian. "My soup is getting cold waiting for you to explain yourself."
"Why, Jane Foster came this morning, mother," said Kathleen. "I'll help you out."
"And I can really only stay with you a week, Aunt Isabel," added Phil.
"She has taken you for a boarder? And all this fuss is about that?" asked Mrs. Fabian. "I should scarcely have thought you'd be so crazy to change my house for hers."
"I know how Phil feels," said Edgar benevolently. "He wants to feel free to make smudges."
"I do, Edgar, mind-reader that you are. Listen, then, all of you. I proposed to Jane that she let me use her chicken-house, and Jane, blessings on her, said the one little word to make me a happy man."
Phil's radiant gaze was bent now upon Kathleen, who met it and nodded. "Just the thing!" she said, and her mother and brother started in on a Babel of tongues. Mrs. Fabian had forgotten the chicken-house. She had not been in that field for years; but Edgar approved, and altogether they joined in Phil's jubilation, and Mrs. Fabian related how she had prepared Pat to pack for just such an exigency.
"The little house is awfully dilapidated," said Kathleen. "Its piazza has fallen off; and I'm sure it leaks. But perhaps you can make it fit to hold your paraphernalia."
"Aunt Isabel, I want you and Kathleen to keep away until I'm in order," said Phil impressively. "You'd try to discourage me and that would waste your time. Eliza is almost in tears, but I know what I want and what I can do."