rderly and silent and precise. What is more, I live in
horror of the day when I shall have to sit down to a meal and not send a
certain little fellow away from the table to wash his hands. That has
become a part of the ceremonial of my life. When the evening comes that
he will appear for dinner, clean and immaculate, his shirt buttoned
properly and his hair nicely brushed, perhaps Mother will be proud of
him; but as for me, there will be a lump in my throat--for I shall know
that he has grown up.

Financially, we were progressing. We had a little more "to do with," as
Mother expressed it; but sorrow and grief and anxiety were not through
with us.

We were not to be one hundred per cent happy. No one ever is. Marjorie
was stricken with typhoid fever, and for fourteen weeks we fought that
battle; saw her sink almost into the very arms of death; and watched her
pale and wasted body day by day, until at last the fever broke and she
was spared to us.

Another bedroom assumed a new meaning to us both. We knew it as it was
in the dark hours of night; we saw the morning sun break through its
windows. It was the first room I visited in the morning and the last I
went to every night. Coming home, I never stopped in hall or
living-room, but hurried straight to her. All there was in that home
then was Marjorie's room! We lived our lives within it. And gradually,
her strength returned and we were happy again.

But only for a brief time.... Early the following summer I was called
home by Doctor Johnson. When I reached there, he met me at the front
door, smiling as though to reassure me.

"You and Bud are going to get out," said he. "Marjorie has scarlet
fever."

Bud had already been sent to his aunt Florence's. I was to gather what
clothing I should need for six weeks, and depart.

If I had been fond of that home before, I grew fonder of it as the days
went by. I think I never knew how much I valued it until I was shut out
from it. I could see Mother and Marjorie through the window, but I was
not to enter. And I grew hungry for a sight of the walls with their
finger marks, and of the ink spot on the rug. We had been six years in
the building of that home. Somehow, a part of us had been woven into
every nook and corner of it.

But Marjorie was not thriving. Her cheeks were pale and slightly
flushed. The removal of tonsils didn't help. Followed a visit to my
dentist. Perhaps a tooth was spreading poison through her system. He