ed up his mother's bag and tucked her hand through his arm.

"Now don't get a cab, or anything," Mrs. Sturgis begged. "I can
perfectly well walk to the street-car--or up to the house, for that
matter. Oh, I'm so much, much better."

"Well," Ken said, "I thought we'd have a little something to eat first,
and then--"

"But we'll have lunch as soon as we get home, dear. What--"

"Well, the fact is," Ken said hastily, "you see we're not at Westover
Street just now. We've been staying in the country for a while, at the
jolliest old place, and, er--they want you to come up there for a while,
too."

Ken had been planning different ways of telling his mother of the
passing of the Westover Street house, all the way down from Asquam. He
could not, now, remember a single word of all those carefully thought
out methods of approach.

"I don't think I quite understand," Mrs. Sturgis said. "Are you staying
with friends? I didn't know we knew any one in the country."

They were in the middle of the street, and Ken chose to focus his
attention on the traffic.

"Let's get to the lunch place," he said. "It's quieter there, to talk."

"Still wearing that old suit, dear?" Mrs. Sturgis said, touching Ken's
sleeve as he hung up his overcoat in the restaurant.

"Er--this is my good suit," Ken murmured. "That is, it's the only suit I
have--that is--"

"See here," said Mrs. Sturgis, whose perceptions were beginning to
quicken as she faced a member of her family again with the barrier of
cautious letters thrown aside; "there's been _enough_ money, hasn't
there?"

"Lots," Ken said hastily. "We've been living royally--wait till you see.
Oh, it's really a duck of a place--and Phil's a perfect wonder."

"_What's_ a duck of a place?"

"Applegate Farm. Oh law! Mother dear, I'll have to tell you. It's only
that we decided the old house was too expensive for us to run just for
ourselves, so we got a nice old place in the country and fixed it up."

"You decided--you got a place in the country? Do you mean to say that
you poor, innocent children have had to manage things like _that_?"

"We didn't want you to bother. _Please_ don't worry, now." Ken looked
anxiously across the table at his mother, as though he rather expected
her to go off in a collapse again.

"Nonsense, Ken, I'm perfectly all right! But--but--oh, please begin at
the beginning and unravel all this."

"Wait till we get on the train," Ken said. "I want to arrange my topi