t's all perfectly regular. You have said
just what you ought to have said and you feel just as you should feel.
Now that's understood, why not talk of something else and be
comfortable?"

The three men had discreetly betaken themselves across the hall and the
children of Amzi II were alone.

"You forget, Lois, that there are other persons besides ourselves to
consider. If it were just Amzi and us--" persisted Mrs. Waterman,
shifting her ground before this shameless confession.

"There's the whole world, when you come to that," said Lois. "What's in
your mind, Jo,--Tom and Phil? Well, there's nothing novel in that; I
thought about them a good deal before I came back. You may scratch Tom
off the list; he's clear out of it. But as for Phil--"

"As for Phil, you have no right--"

"I haven't the slightest claim on Phil, of course; I never said I had,
and I don't pretend to have. Please don't assume, Fanny, that I've lost
all the wits I ever had! I'll say to you frankly that I feel that my
coming may be troublesome to Phil; and yet the fact that I am here" (she
smiled and threw out her arms, allowing them to fall to emphasize the
futility of words)--"the fact that I am here shows that I have
considered that and decided to take the risk of coming, in spite of
Phil."

"Lois, you don't seem to have the slightest comprehension of the
case--not the slightest," urged Mrs. Waterman, resenting the smile with
which her sister had ended. "You brutally abandoned Phil; and now you
come back to spoil her life. I didn't suppose there was a woman in the
world so callous, so utterly without shame, so blindly selfish--"

Amzi paused in his stride across the room and planted himself
belligerently before his oldest sister. His eyes bulged angrily.

"Josie, you can't talk like that to Lois; not in this house! I tell you,
Lois is all right. If you don't like her, you can let her alone. I'm not
going to have you talk to her like this--not here. Now I want you to
understand, you, Josie; you, Kate; you, Fanny" (he indicated each in
turn with his pudgy forefinger) "I wouldn't let her badger you, and I'm
not going to let you jump on her."

"You talk like a fool, Amzi," said Mrs. Waterman, angry tears flashing
in her eyes. "If you realized what we have always stood for in this
community, and what it means to you as well as the rest of us; and poor
little Phil, and all--"

"What have you all got to do with Phil? Phil's all right," he shouted