_know_," she said to herself, "but I do feel--think--imagine--a
good deal. I'm sure I hope not! Anyway--it's new life to have that girl
in the house."

That girl had undertaken what she described to Ross as "a large order--a
very large order."

"It's the hardest thing I ever undertook," she wrote him, "but I think
I can do it; and it will be a tremendous help. Mrs. Weatherstone's a
brick--a perfect brick! She seems to have been very unhappy--for ever
so long--and to have submitted to her domineering old mother-in-law just
because she didn't care enough to resist. Now she's got waked up all
of a sudden--she says it was my paper at the club--more likely my awful
example, I think! and she fired her old housekeeper--I don't know what
for--and rushed me in.

"So here I am. The salary is good, the work is excellent training, and I
guess I can hold the place. But the old lady is a terror, and the young
man--how you would despise that Johnny!"

The home letters she now received were rather amusing. Ross, sternly
patient, saw little difference in her position. "I hope you will enjoy
your new work," he wrote, "but personally I should prefer that you did
not--so you might give it up and come home sooner. I miss you as you
can well imagine. Even when you were here life was hard enough--but
now!!!!!!

"I had a half offer for the store the other day, but it fell through. If
I could sell that incubus and put the money into a ranch--fruit, hens,
anything--then we could all live on it; more cheaply, I think; and I
could find time for some research work I have in mind. You remember that
guinea-pig experiment I want so to try?"

Diantha remembered and smiled sadly. She was not much interested in
guinea-pigs and their potential capacities, but she was interested in
her lover and his happiness. "Ranch," she said thoughtfully; "that's not
a bad idea."

Her mother wrote the same patient loving letters, perfunctorily hopeful.
Her father wrote none--"A woman's business--this letter-writin'," he
always held; and George, after one scornful upbraiding, had "washed his
hands of her" with some sense of relief. He didn't like to write letters
either.

But Susie kept up a lively correspondence. She was attached to her
sister, as to all her immediate relatives and surroundings; and while
she utterly disapproved of Diantha's undertaking, a sense of sisterly
duty, to say nothing of affection, prompted her to many letters. It did
not, however,