"Thank you, ma'am," said Max laughingly, as he took the seat indicated. "It's really delightful to be treated as a relative by so dear and sweet a lady, but you do look so young that it seems almost ridiculous for a great fellow like me to call you grandma."
"Does it? Why, your father calls me mother, and to be so related to him surely must make me your grandmother."
"But you are not really old enough to be his mother, and I am his oldest child."
"And begin to feel yourself something of a man, since you are not called Max, but Mr. Raymond at the Academy yonder?" she returned in a playfully interrogative tone.
Max seemed to consider a moment, then smiling, but blushing vividly, "I'm afraid I must plead guilty to that charge, Grandma Elsie," he said with some hesitation.
"What is that, Max?" asked his father, drawing near just in time to catch the last words.
"That I begin to feel that—as if I'm a—at least almost—a man, sir," answered the lad, stammering and coloring with mortification.
"Ah, that's not so very bad, my boy," laughed his father. "I believe that at your age I was more certain of being one than you are—really feeling rather more fully convinced of my wisdom and consequence than I am now."
"Were you indeed, papa? then there is hope for me," returned the lad, with a pleased look. "I was really afraid you would think me abominably conceited."
"No, dear boy, none of us think you that," said Mrs. Travilla, again smiling sweetly upon him. "But you have not yet answered my query as to how you enjoyed the artillery exercise we have just seen you go through."