gh the spring was well
advanced, the weather was not more than chilly, and the hour was late.
It was as if coals were not a marketable commodity and a serious item in
the expenses of an embarrassed household. She held up a Japanese fan
between her face and the fire, from mere custom, for she had ceased to
pay much heed to the exigencies of a florid complexion.

"It's a thousand pities," repeated the little Doctor, looking quite
portentously regretful and oppressed. "It is not only that Tom Robinson
is an excellent fellow and would have made Dora the best of
husbands--given her a safe and happy home, and all that sort of thing;
but in case of anything happening, I am convinced he would have been as
good as a brother to the other girls, and a son to you. A man like him
is a stay and support to a household of helpless women."

"But nothing is going to happen, Jonathan," said Mrs. Millar, with an
involuntary nervous quiver which sent her cap hovering over one eyebrow.
"At least nothing worse than we know. Your practice is not so lucrative
as it used to be; how can it, in these bad times, with so many poor
young fellows of doctors settling here and there and everywhere in
Redcross and the villages around, starving themselves out, while they
impoverish their seniors? Nothing more than that, except the little
trouble at Carey's Bank."

"Quite enough too, Maria, quite enough," commented the Doctor deep down
in his throat, prolonging the words a little as if he were chanting the
refrain of a dismal song; "and when a man is my age and has plenty of
the young rivals you refer to, it is high time he should be looking out
for something happening. A family of girls, too. God help me! If they
had been four boys, who might have made their own way in the world, and
provided for you among them, I could have faced it better." He struck
the table again, with spasmodic force this time.

"Now, Jonathan, you will wake up the house. This is not like you,"
remonstrated his wife--all the more energetically that her heart sank
while she spoke. "I should not have expected you to give way in this
manner." She gave a quick push back to her unruly cap. "I am sure there
is no occasion for it. We are in no worse position than we were last
year, even the year before that."

"Save that I am growing older every year," he said grimly, "and the
affairs of the bank are not mending, as I hoped they might."

"Can't you sell out?" she suggested breathless