blaze, the man said
seriously:

"When your mother was your age, Anne, you had been born."

To this statistical announcement, the obvious response being denied by
kindness, she made no answer. Perhaps she could not help reflecting had
her mother been more deliberate, many years of discontent might have
been escaped.

"My family has little to thank me for," observed Masters at last, with a
candour that the daughter found embarrassing. "Conversely, I dare say, I
have little claim to expect much--and yet even life's derelicts are
subject to human emotions."

"For instance, Daddy?"

"Tom Wallifarro stands pretty close to his allotment of three score and
ten," came the thoughtful answer. "Neither your mother nor I is exactly
young. It would be a comfort to think of you as settled, with your own
life plans drawn and arranged."

The girl smiled up at him from her low chair. "Daddy," she said softly,
"you know what I'm waiting for. You're the one person of my own blood
that I can take into full confidence, because you're the only one who
doesn't think of my life as a piece of cloth to be cut and fitted to
Morgan's measure, whether it suits me or not. You've never said much,
but I've known you were on my side."

For the first time in her memory her father was not immediately
responsive. His hand falling on her bright head rested there with a
dubious touch, and his eyes were irresolutely clouded.

"I wonder, dear," he said slowly, "whether, after all, I don't agree
with the others--in part, at least. All my life I've been an insurgent,
scorning the caution of the provident, and paying a beastly stiff price
for my mutiny against smugly accepted rules of the game."

"A woman has only one life to share," she answered firmly. "It's not
exactly insurgency to insist on loving the man."

After a little he inquired, "You _are_ fond of Morgan, though, aren't
you? If there were no Boone Wellver, for instance, you might even love
him, mightn't you?"

"There is a Boone, though." She spoke quietly but with a finality that
seemed to close the doors upon discussion, and a silence followed.

Finally, however, Larry Masters cleared his throat in an embarrassed
fashion. "I spoke a while back of wanting to see you protected in the
shelter of a home. Since we've embarked on the subject, I'm going to
tell you something more. A certain truth has been carefully withheld
from you, and I believe you ought to know it."

"What truth?" Her e