uggested.

"That wouldn't make any difference," the older sister said composedly.
"I have the actual deeds--the titles, whatever they are--to the
property MY money comes from. He gave me them a year ago, when he was
sixty. I certainly dread the talk there'll be when his will comes to
light, but Joe will be here then, and Joe isn't afraid of any one."

"He's done for you what Pa should have done," Martie mused.

"Oh, well, Pa did his best for us, Mart." Sally said dutifully; "he
gave us a good home--"

"WAS it a good home?" Martie questioned mildly.

"It was a much finer home than MY children have, Mart."

"As far as walls and tables and silver spoons, I suppose it was. But,
Sally, there's no child alive who has a sweeter atmosphere than
this--always with mother, always learning, and always considered! Why,
my boy is blooming already in it!"

Sally's face flushed with pleasure.

"Martie, you make me so proud!"

"If you can only keep it up, Sally. With me it doesn't matter so much,
because I've only the one, and no husband whose claims might interfere.
But when 'Lizabeth and Mary, as well as the boys, are older--"

"You mean--always let them have their friends at the house, and so on?"
Sally asked slowly.

"Yes, but more than that! Let them feel as much a part of the world as
the boys do. Put them into any work--only make them respect it!"

"Pa might have helped us, only neither you nor I, nor Lyd, ever showed
the least interest in work," Sally submitted thoughtfully.

"Neither did Len--but he MADE Len!"

"Yes, I see what you mean," Sally admitted with an awakening face. "But
we would have thought he was pretty stern, Mart," she added.

"Just as children do when they have to learn to read and write,"
countered Martie. "Don't you see?"

Sally did not see, but she was glad to see Martie's interest. She told
Lydia later that Martie really seemed better and more like her old
self, even in these few days.

With almost all the women of Monroe, Lydia now considered Martie's life
a thing accomplished, and boldly accomplished. To leave home, to marry,
to have children in a strange city, to be honorably widowed and to
return to her father's home, and rear her child in seclusion and
content; this was more than fell to the lot of many women. Lydia
listened with actual shudders to Martie's casually dropped revelations.

"This John Dryden that I told you about, Lyd--the man who wrote the
play that failed--was anxi