obert; and this almost gives
me the right to priority."

"I know, I know," her husband replied, drawing her gently to him. "Do
you never forget it?"

"You and the dear girls have softened the past into a memory which I can
at least endure," she continued, "and you fill the present with so much
happiness that I rarely have time to look backward."

"Alice spoke just now of how much you had been to her, and it started
something moving in my own heart. That is probably what led me to speak
as I did."

"Alice is a darling," Mrs. Gorham replied, happy beyond words at the
double tribute received from father and daughter. "Just now she is
passing through what seems to her to be a crisis, and she needs
assistance from us both."

Gorham looked at her in surprise. "A crisis?" he asked.

"Yes, Robert; and the responsibility is yours: you have passed on to
her, as directly as heredity can do it, that love of business which has
made you what you are. You have been denied a son, but whether you wish
it or not your daughter naturally possesses those very business
instincts which you would have been proud to recognize in your son."

"You amaze me," Gorham replied. "Alice is forever trying to persuade me
to let her help me and all that, but I have attributed it simply to an
affectionate desire on her part to be of service to me."

"It is more than that--there is the reflection of yourself in the girl's
soul which demands expression."

"But it would be absurd for her to do anything of that kind."

"Why so? I don't mean for her to go into a business office, of course.
But could you not gratify her by explaining certain problems which she
could grasp, and then give her an opportunity to work them out herself
in some minor personal matter of which you have so many?"

"It seems ridiculous to me," Gorham said, after a moment's silence, "but
I will think it over carefully. I am disappointed, I admit, that neither
one of my children, especially Alice, should have been a son to
perpetuate my name and to continue my work; but that was not to be, and
my daughters are all that I could ask."

"They are indeed," she assented, feelingly. "I believe Alice realizes
your disappointment and actually reproaches herself, poor child, for not
being what you wished."

"Oh, no!" he protested. "I must set her right on that at once. I admit
my disappointment, but that does not lessen my appreciation of my
blessings. You and the girls are everything