dith, when
she married, had wanted something from her old home. Well, now it was back
in the family.

The rest of Edith's furniture, he learned from Deborah that night, had been
stored in the top of the house.

"Most of it," she told him, "Edith will probably want to use in fitting up
the children's rooms." With a twinge of foreboding, Roger felt the
approaching change in his home.

"When do you plan to be married?" he asked.

"About the end of August. We couldn't very well till then, without hurting
poor Edith a little, you see. You know how she feels about such things--"

"Yes, I guess you're right," he agreed.

How everything centered 'round Edith, he thought. To pay the debts which
Bruce had left would take all Roger had on hand; and from this time on his
expenses, with five growing children here, would be a fast increasing
drain. He would have to be careful and husband his strength, a thing he had
always hated to do.

In the next few weeks, he worked hard in his office. He cut down his
smoking, stayed home every evening and went to bed at ten o'clock. He tried
to shut Deborah out of his mind. As for Laura, he barely gave her a
thought. She dropped in one evening to bid him good-bye, for this summer
again she was going abroad. She and her husband, she told him, were to
motor through the Balkans and down into Italy. Her father gruffly answered
that he hoped she would enjoy herself. It seemed infernally unfair that it
should not be Deborah who was sailing the next morning. But when he felt
himself growing annoyed, abruptly he put a check on himself. It was Edith
he must think of now.

But curiously it happened, in this narrowing of his attention, that while
he shut out two of his daughters, a mere outsider edged closer in.

Johnny Geer was a great help. He was back in Roger's office, and with the
sharp wits he had gained in his eighteen years of fighting for a chance to
stay alive, now at Roger's elbow John was watching like a hawk for all the
little ways and means of pushing up the business. What a will the lad had
to down bodily ills, what vim in the way he tackled each job. His shrewd
and cheery companionship was a distraction and relief. John was so funny
sometimes.

"Good-morning, Mr. Gale," he said, as Roger came into the office one day.

"Hello, Johnny. How are you?" Roger replied.

"Fine, thank you." And John went on with his work of opening the morning's
mail. But a few minutes later he gave a c