body_ to manage it!"

*****

Within a year of her marriage Diantha was at the head of this pleasing
Centre of Housekeeping. She kept the hotel itself so that it was a joy
to all its patrons; she kept the little houses homes of pure delight for
those who were so fortunate as to hold them; and she kept up her "c.
f. d." business till it grew so large she had to have quite a fleet of
delivery wagons.

Orchardina basked and prospered; its citizens found their homes happier
and less expensive than ever before, and its citizenesses began to wake
up and to do things worth while.

*****

Two years, and there was a small Ross Warden born.

She loved it, nursed it, and ran her business at long range for some
six months. But then she brought nurse and child to the hotel with her,
placed them in the cool, airy nursery in the garden, and varied her busy
day with still hours by herself--the baby in her arms.

Back they came together before supper, and found unbroken joy and peace
in the quiet of home; but always in the background was the current of
Ross' unspoken disapproval.

Three years, four years.

There were three babies now; Diantha was a splendid woman of thirty,
handsome and strong, pre-eminently successful--and yet, there were times
when she found it in her heart to envy the most ordinary people who
loved and quarreled and made up in the little outlying ranch houses
along the road; they had nothing between them, at least.

Meantime in the friendly opportunities of Orchardina society, added to
by the unexampled possibilities of Las Casas (and they did not scorn
this hotel nor Diantha's position in it), the three older Miss Wardens
had married. Two of them preferred "the good old way," but one tried the
"d. s." and the "c. f. d." and liked them well.

Dora amazed and displeased her family, as soon as she was of age, by
frankly going over to Diantha's side and learning bookkeeping. She
became an excellent accountant and bade fair to become an expert manager
soon.

Ross had prospered in his work. It may be that the element of
dissatisfaction in his married life spurred him on, while the unusual
opportunities of his ranch allowed free effort. He had always held that
the "non-transmissability of acquired traits" was not established by
any number of curtailed mice or crop-eared rats. "A mutilation is not
an acquired trait," he protested. "An acquired trait is one gained by
exercise; it modifies the whole organism. I