"He is only nineteen," said Julia; "but I am sure he looks older."
"Only nineteen! Why, Will is seventeen, and he is quite a boy compared with Cousin Gerald."
"That is very likely, for he has been brought up in the country, and that makes a great difference. Now I am sure that Gerald knows quite as much as most men do, and I think it is too bad for father to treat him like a boy."
"Does he?" asked Ruth innocently.
"Yes; he won't even allow him to have a latch-key, and then he complains if Gerald is rather late home in the evening, and he has to sit up for him. And even mamma annoys him dreadfully sometimes by calling him 'her dear boy.'"
"I thought mothers did that even when their sons were quite grown up," said Ruth.
"I don't think they should," was Julia's reply. "But it is quite too bad of papa to expect poor Gerald to slave away in that office all day. He is quite a tyrant, and grudges the poor fellow any pleasure."
"Julia! Julia! I am sure it is very wrong of you to talk in that way of your parents," cried Ruth reproachfully. "Don't you know the Bible says, 'Honour thy father and mother'?"
"What an old-fashioned, tiresome creature you are!" muttered Julia in a sleepy voice.