?" he asked.

"No. Nan, bless her, cannot disguise herself, but Joan can! Joan will
suffer through her strength."

The period, always a dangerous one, the year following school life,
became Doris's great concern while the school time progressed in orderly
fashion under Miss Phillips's guidance.

"I am keeping my hands off," Doris often confided to Martin. "It is only
fair play while the children are at Dondale. You were right--Miss
Phillips is a wonderful woman--I have learned to trust her absolutely.
She has appreciated what I tried to do for the girls; is building on it;
she will return them to me--not different, but--extended! It's the time
after, David, that I am planning. That time which is the link between
restraint and the finding of one's self."

"I declare," Martin would reply to this, "I wonder that you ever get
results, Doris; you harvest while others are sowing."

But deep in us all is the current carrying on and on, and it was
hurrying Doris during the years while the girls were at Dondale.

There were the happy vacations, the new interests, the marvel of
watching the miracle of evolution from the child to the woman. At times
this was breathlessly exciting.

Doris filled her private time with useful and enjoyable hours. She got
into closer touch with old friends, saw and heard the best in music and
drama, permitted herself the luxury of David Martin's friendship, and
shared his confidences about his sister's son in the Far West--a
fatherless boy who promised much but often failed in fulfilment.

"Odd, isn't it, Davey," Doris sometimes said, "that you and I, having,
somehow, lost what is the commonplace road for most men and women, have
been called upon to assume many of the joys and sorrows of that broad
highway?"

"We none of us go scot free," Martin returned. "I'm grateful for every
decent, common job thrown at me."

And so the years passed and Doris had outlined a vague but comprehensive
line of action for the immediate months following the girls' graduation
from Dondale.

"I am going to take them abroad," she announced to Martin; "take them
over the route that Merry and I took--our last journey together. And,
David, in that little Italian town they shall know--about Meredith and
Thornton!"

David started, but made no remark.

"And when we return," Doris went on, "I am going to bring the girls
out--I hate the term, I'd rather say let them out--just as Merry and I
were, in this dear, old