egin a conversation.
Martie's happiness was flooding her spirit like a golden tide; she was
conscious, under all the sordid actualities of a home dinner, that
something sweet--sweet--sweet--had happened to her. She bubbled news.

Grace Hawkes actually was going to work Monday--Rose was going back to
visit Alma--they had met Doc' Ben, hadn't they, Sally? Oh, and Rodney
Parker was home!

"Lucky stiff!" Lenny commented in reference to Rodney.

"He's awfully nice!" Martie said eagerly. "He walked up with us!"

"With us--with YOU!" Sally corrected archly.

"What time was that?" their father asked suddenly.

"About--oh, half-past four or five. Sally and I went down for the mail."

"Rodney Parker ..." Leonard began. "Say, mama, this is all cold," he
interrupted himself to say coaxingly.

"I'll warm it for you, Babe," Lydia said, rising as her mother began to
rise, and reaching for the boy's plate.

"Don't call me BABE!" he protested.

His older sister gave his rough head a good-natured pat as she passed
him.

"You're all the baby we have, Lenny--and he was an awfully sweet baby,
wasn't he, ma?" she said.

"Rodney Parker's going to be in the Bank; I bet he doesn't stay,"
Leonard resumed. "Could you get me into the Bank, Pa?"

"Dear me--I remember that boy as such a handsome baby, before you were
born, Martie," her mother said. "And to think he's been through
college!"

"I wish I could go to college, you bet!" observed Lenny. His father
shot him a glance.

"Your grandfather was a college graduate, my son, and as you know only
an accident cut short my own stay at my alma mater--hem!" he said
pompously. "I have no money to throw away; yet, when you have decided
upon a profession, you need only come to your father with a frank,
manly statement of your plans, and what can be done will be done; you
know that." He wiped his moustache carefully, and glanced about,
meeting the admiring gaze of wife and daughters.

"If you've got any sense, you'll go, Len," Martie said. "I wish you'd
let me go study to be a trained nurse, Pa! Miss Fanny wants me to go
into the lib'ary. I bet I could do it, and I'd like it, too ..."

"And speaking of your grandfather reminds me," Malcolm said heavily,
"that one of the things that delayed me to-day was a matter that came
up a week or two ago. When the town buys the old Archer ranch as a
Park, they propose to put twelve thousand dollars into improvements--"

"Oh, joy!" said Martie. "E