fond
birds. He must stay his leave out with them.

At this pronunciamento of Aunt Lavina's a swift glance passed between
the two old women. Thompson caught it, measured the doubt and uneasiness
of the mutual look, and was puzzled thereby.

But he did not fathom its source for a day or two, and only then by a
process of deduction. They treated him handsomely, they demonstrated an
affection which moved him deeply because he had never suspected its
existence. (They had always been so precise, almost harsh with him as a
youngster.) But their living was intolerably meager. Disguise it with
every artifice, a paucity of resource--or plain niggardliness--betrayed
itself at every meal. Thompson discarded the theory of niggardliness.
And proceeding thence on the first conclusion stood his two aunts in a
corner--figuratively, of course--and wrung from them a statement of
their financial status.

They were proud and reluctant. But Thompson had not moved among and
dealt with men of the world to be baffled by two old women, so presently
he was in possession of certain facts.

They had not been able to support themselves, to rear and educate him,
on their income alone, and gradually their small capital had been
consumed. They were about to negotiate the sale of their home, the
proceeds of which would keep them from want--if they did not live too
long. They tried to make light of it, but Thompson grasped the tragedy.
They had been born in that brick cottage with the silver birch before
the door.

"Well," he said at length, "I don't want to preempt the Lord's
prerogative of providing. But I can't permit this state of affairs. I
wish you had taken me into your confidence, aunties, when I was a
youngster. However, that doesn't matter now. Can you live comfortably on
eleven hundred dollars a year?"

Aunt Harriet held up her hands.

"My dear boy," she said, "such a sum would give us luxuries, us two old
women. But that is out of the question. If we get five thousand for the
place we shall have to live on a great deal less than that."

"Forget that nonsense about selling this place," Thompson said roughly.
That grated on him. He felt a sense of guilt, of responsibility too long
neglected. "Where I'm going I shall be supplied by the government with
all I need. I've made some money. I own war-bonds sufficient to give you
eleven hundred a year in interest. I'll turn them over to you. If I come
back with a whole skin when the war's ov