ere was hardly a stone or stick about it that hadn't some tender happy
association for her. Of course for years the neighborhood had been
impossible. Her mother had clung to it after her husband's death, as was
of course natural.

But when she had followed him, a year ago now, it was evident that the
old place would have to go. Rodney, who had lived alone with her there,
had simply stayed on, since her death, waiting for an offer for it that
suited him. Frederica had known that, of course--had worried about him,
as she said, and in her imagination, had colored his loneliness to the
same dismal hue her own would have taken on in similar circumstances.

All the same, his curt announcement that the long-looked-for change had
come, brought up quick unwelcomed tears. She squeezed them away with her
palms.

"You'll come to us then, won't you?" she asked, but quite without
conviction. She knew what he'd say.

"Heavens, no! Oh, I'll go to a hotel for a while--maybe look up a
little down-town apartment, with a Jap. It doesn't matter much about
that. It's a load off, all right."

"Is that," she asked, "why you've been looking so sort of--gay, all the
evening--as if you were licking the last of the canary's feathers off
your whiskers?"

"Perhaps so," he said. "It's been a pretty good day, take it all round."

She got up from the couch, shook herself down into her clothes a little,
and came over to him.

"All right, since it's been a good day, let's go to bed." She put her
hands upon his shoulders. "You're rather dreadful," she said, "but
you're a dear. You don't bite my head off when I urge you to get
married, though I know you want to. But you will some day--I don't mean
bite my head off--won't you, Rod?"

"When I see any prospect of being as lucky as Martin--find a girl who
won't mind when I turn up for dinner looking like a drowned tramp, or
kick her plans to bits, after she's tipped me off as to what she wants
me to do ..."

Frederica took her hands off, stepped back and looked at him. There was
an ironical sort of smile on her lips.

"You're such an innocent," she said. "You've got an idea you know
me--know how I treat Martin. Roddy, dear, a girl's brother doesn't
matter. She isn't dependent on him, nor responsible for him. And if
she's rather sillily fond of him, she's likely to spoil him frightfully.
Don't think the girl you marry will ever treat you like that."

"But look here!" he exclaimed. "You say I don'