ether--and anybody can dance."

"Oh!" said Jeffrey. His eyes had a shade less of gravity, but he kept an
unmoved seriousness of tone.

"About our living with Farvie," said Anne. "I can see you'd want to
know."

"Yes," said he, "I do."

"We love to," said Anne. "We don't know what we should do if Farvie
turned us out."

"My dear!" from the colonel.

"Why, he's our father," said Lydia, in a burst. "He's just as much our
father as he is yours."

"Good!" said Jeffrey. His voice had warmed perceptibly. "Good for you.
That's what I thought."

"If you'd rather not settle down here," said his father, in a tone of
hoping Jeff would like it very much, "we shall be glad to let the house
again and go anywhere you say. We've often talked of it, the girls and
I."

Jeffrey did not thank them for that, or seem to hear it even.

"I want," said he, "to go West."

"Well," said Farvie, with a determined cheerfulness, "I guess the
girls'll agree to that. Middle West?"

"No," said Jeffrey, "the West--if there is any West left. Somewhere
where there's space." His voice fell, on that last word. It held wonder
even. Was there such a thing, this man of four walls seemed to ask, as
space?

"You'd want to go alone," said Anne softly. She felt as if she were
breaking something to Farvie and adjuring him to bear it.

"Yes," said Jeffrey, in relief. "I've got to go alone."

"My son--" said the colonel and couldn't go on. Then he did manage.
"Aren't we going to live together?"

"Not yet," said Jeffrey. "Not yet."

The colonel had thought so much about his old age that now he was near
saying: "You know I haven't so very many years," but he held on to
himself.

"He's got to go alone," said Anne. "But he'll come back."

"Yes," said Lydia, from the habit they had learned of heartening Farvie,
"he'll come back."

But she was hotly resolving that he should learn his duty and stay here.
Let her get a word with him alone.

"What I'm going to do out there I don't know," said Jeffrey. "But I am
going to work, and I'm going to turn in enough to keep you as you ought
to be. I want to stay here a little while first."

The colonel was rejuvenated by delight. Lydia wondered how anybody could
see that look on his face and not try to keep it there.

"I've got," said Jeffrey, "to write a book."

"Oh, my son," said the colonel, "that's better than I hoped. The
newspapers have had it all, how you've changed the prison paper, and how
you