the weeping Ilda to her room for the night. Madam
Weatherstone and Mrs. Weatherstone went down together.

"She must have encouraged him!" the older lady finally burst forth.

"She did not encourage him to enter her room, as you saw and heard,"
said Viva with repressed intensity.

"He's only a boy!" said his grandmother.

"She is only a child, a helpless child, a foreigner, away from home,
untaught, unprotected," Viva answered swiftly; adding with quiet
sarcasm--"Save for the shelter of the home!"

They parted in silence.

CHAPTER X. UNION HOUSE.

"We are weak!" said the Sticks, and men broke them;
"We are weak!" said the Threads, and were torn;
Till new thoughts came and they spoke them;
Till the Fagot and the Rope were born.

For the Fagot men find is resistant,
And they anchor on the Rope's taut length;
Even grasshoppers combined,
Are a force, the farmers find--
In union there is strength.

Ross Warden endured his grocery business; strove with it, toiled at it,
concentrated his scientific mind on alien tasks of financial calculation
and practical psychology, but he liked it no better. He had no interest
in business, no desire to make money, no skill in salesmanship.

But there were five mouths at home; sweet affectionate feminine mouths
no doubt, but requiring food. Also two in the kitchen, wider, and
requiring more food. And there were five backs at home to be covered,
to use the absurd metaphor--as if all one needed for clothing was a
four foot patch. The amount and quality of the covering was an unceasing
surprise to Ross, and he did not do justice to the fact that his
womenfolk really saved a good deal by doing their own sewing.

In his heart he longed always to be free of the whole hated load of
tradesmanship. Continually his thoughts went back to the hope of selling
out the business and buying a ranch.

"I could make it keep us, anyhow," he would plan to himself; "and I
could get at that guinea pig idea. Or maybe hens would do." He had
a theory of his own, or a personal test of his own, rather, which he
wished to apply to a well known theory. It would take some years to
work it out, and a great many fine pigs, and be of no possible value
financially. "I'll do it sometime," he always concluded; which was cold
comfort.

His real grief at losing the companionship of the girl he loved, was
made more bitter by a total lack of sympathy with h