"A very interesting one," said Mr. Emerson. "It shows that every generation has to be handled differently from the last one," he nodded to his daughter.
"Nobody has ever been up on the hill to see my room—if Helen will excuse my mentioning it," said Roger.
Helen flushed.
"Don't make fun of me, Roger. You do what you want to and it's all right and I want to do the same thing and it's all wrong," burst out Helen once more.
"There, dear, we don't want to hear it all again. Go and arrange for your lessons and as soon as you can make good blouses I'd like to have a dozen for the Ethels."
"You're a duck, Mother," and Helen ran out of the room, smiling, though with a feeling that she did not quite understand it all. And well she might be puzzled, for what she was struggling with has puzzled wiser heads than hers, and is one of the new problems that has been brought us by the twentieth century.
"I'll walk up with you to see your room, Roger," offered Mr. Emerson, "if you're sure I can go without blundering into some class."
"I'll steer you O.K. Come on, sir," cried Roger and he and his grandfather left the cottage as Mrs. Emerson started for her nine o'clock class in the Hall of Christ to be followed by the ten o'clock Devotional Hour and the eleven o'clock lecture in the Amphitheatre. There she would be joined by Mrs. Morton, who went every morning at nine to the Woman's Club in the Hall of Philosophy, and then to a ten o'clock French class. Up to the time of the fire the Ethels had escorted Dicky to the kindergarten and had then run on to the Girls' Club.
Roger and his grandfather strolled northward along the shore of the lake talking about Helen.
"I understand exactly how she feels," said Roger, "because I should feel exactly the same way if you people expected me to do what you expect her to do."