hallways upstairs, and peeped into shabby bedrooms full of
small beds and dangling nightgowns and broken toys.

Mary was sitting up in her crib, tumbled, red-cheeked, tears hanging on
her lashes. The room was darkened for her nap; she wore a worn little
discoloured wrapper; she clung to her rag doll. Martie, with deathly
weakness sweeping over her, smiled, and spoke to her. The baby eyed her
curiously, but she was not afraid. Martie picked her up, and stood
there holding her, while the knife turned and twisted in her heart.

After a while she wrapped a blanket about Mary, and carried her
downstairs. Sally saw that Martie's face was ashen, and she knew why.
Lydia saw nothing. Lydia would have said that Martie had placed poor
Wallace's picture on her bureau that morning, and had talked about him,
calmly and dry-eyed; so why should she feel so much more for her baby?
Teddy had been a little strange, if eagerly friendly, with his other
cousins; but he knew how to treat Mary. He picked up the things she
threw down from her high-chair, and tickled her, and made her laugh.

"If this elaborate and formal meal is dinner, Sally dear, what is
supper?"

"Oh, Martie, it's so delicious to hear you again! Why, supper will be
apple sauce and bread and butter and milk, and gingerbread and cookies.
It's the same the year round! I like it, really; after we go up to Pa's
to supper the children don't sleep well, and neither do I."

"You haven't told me yet where Joe is."

"Oh, I know, and I WILL! We get talking, and somehow there's so much to
say. Why, Joe's finishing his course at Cooper's College in San
Francisco; he'll graduate this May. Dr. J. F. Hawkes; isn't that fun!"

"A regular doctor!" Martie exclaimed. "But--but is he going to BE one?"

"BE one! I should think he is!" Sally announced proudly. "Uncle Ben
says he's a born doctor--"

"And how long has it been UNCLE Ben?"

"Oh, 'Lizabeth adopted him. He adores the children."

"He loaned Joe the money," Lydia said with her old air of delicately
emphasizing an unsavoury truth.

Sally gave her younger sister a rather odd look at this, but she did
not deny the statement.

"And who keeps the quartette going?" asked Martie, glancing about.

"Joe's people; and Pa does send barrels of apples and things, doesn't
he, Sally?" Lydia supplied.

"Oh, yes; we only pay twelve dollars rent, and we live very cheaply!"
Sally said cheerfully, with another mysterious look.

A day or t