oes up from a chimney, and seems all thick and
black and busy against the sky, as if it were going to do such important
things and last forever, and you see it getting thinner and thinner--and
then, in such a little while, it isn't there at all; nothing is left but
the sky, and the sky keeps on being just the same forever."

"It strikes me you're getting mixed up," said George cheerfully. "I
don't see much resemblance between time and the sky, or between things
and smoke-wreaths; but I do see one reason you like 'Lucy Morgan so
much. She talks that same kind of wistful, moony way sometimes--I don't
mean to say I mind it in either of you, because I rather like to listen
to it, and you've got a very good voice, mother. It's nice to listen to,
no matter how much smoke and sky, and so on, you talk. So's Lucy's for
that matter; and I see why you're congenial. She talks that way to her
father, too; and he's right there with the same kind of guff. Well, it's
all right with me!" He laughed, teasingly, and allowed her to retain his
hand, which she had fondly seized. "I've got plenty to think about when
people drool along!"

She pressed his hand to her cheek, and a tear made a tiny warm streak
across one of his knuckles.

"For heaven's sake!" he said. "What's the matter? Isn't everything all
right?"

"You're going away!"

"Well, I'm coming back, don't you suppose? Is that all that worries
you?"

She cheered up, and smiled again, but shook her head. "I never can bear
to see you go--that's the most of it. I'm a little bothered about your
father, too."

"Why?"

"It seems to me he looks so badly. Everybody thinks so."

"What nonsense!" George laughed. "He's been looking that way all summer.
He isn't much different from the way he's looked all his life, that I
can see. What's the matter with him?"

"He never talks much about his business to me but I think he's been
worrying about some investments he made last year. I think his worry has
affected his health."

"What investments?" George demanded. "He hasn't gone into Mr. Morgan's
automobile concern, has he?"

"No," Isabel smiled. "The 'automobile concern' is all Eugene's, and it's
so small I understand it's taken hardly anything. No; your father
has always prided himself on making only the most absolutely safe
investments, but two or three years ago he and your Uncle George both
put a great deal--pretty much everything they could get together, I
think--into the stock o