d on to her money better than
the others. Alec never had sense enough to be a big spender."

"Thunder!" Amzi ejaculated. "Josie's broke like the rest of 'em. Alec
has a weakness for gold mines. That's cost a heap, and he doesn't earn
enough practicing law to pay for the ice in Josie's ice-box. Fosdick
lives up in the air--away up, clean out of sight. I figure that as a
floorwalker in a department store Hastings would be worth about twelve
dollars a week; and Fosdick might succeed as barker for a five-legged
calf in a side-show; but Alec's place in the divine economy is something
I have never placed, and I defy any man to place it!"

Amzi was enjoying himself. It was with real zest that he hit off his
brothers-in-law to this sister, who afforded him an outlet for
long-stifled emotions. He had been honestly loyal to the three
homekeeping sisters and to their husbands also for that matter; and the
fact that he could at last let himself go deepened his sense of the
sympathy and the understanding that had always existed between him and
Lois. He hated fuss; and his other sisters were tiresomely fussy and
maddeningly disingenuous. In half an hour Lois had learned all she cared
to know of the family history. She merely dipped into the bin, brought
up a handful of wheat, blew away the chaff, eyed the remaining kernels
with a sophisticated eye, and tossed them over her shoulder.

"As near as I can make out they're all broke; is that about it?"

"Just about," Amzi replied. "They haven't mortgaged their homes yet, but
if Mrs. Bill Holton turns up with a new automobile next spring or gets
some specially dazzling rags, I expect to see three nice fresh mortgages
on those homes out there."

"Ah! Mrs. William sets the pace, does she? It's a good thing father died
before he saw the Montgomerys trying to keep up with the Holtons.
William prospers?"

"Judged by Mrs. Bill's doings he does. By the way, Jack has been back
here."

Amzi turned to see what effect the mention of Jack Holton would have
upon her; but in no wise embarrassed, with only a slight lifting of the
brows, she said quickly:--

"I thought it likely. I suppose William ran to meet him--general
love-feast and all that?"

They were approaching delicate ground; but it seemed as well to go on
and be done with it. He told her, more fully than he had recounted any
other incident of the sixteen years, of Phil's party; of the insistence
of her sisters upon a reconciliation