our hands off."

"Do you think you can?" asked Roger, with a little glimmer of hope.

"I?" she retorted. "Most certainly! I mean to leave her alone
absolutely--until she comes to me herself. When she does, we'll know it's
time to begin."

* * * * *

"I'm afraid Edith is hurt about something," said Deborah to her father,
about a month after this little talk. "She hasn't been near us for over
three weeks."

"Let her be!" said Roger, in alarm. "I mean," he hastily added, "why can't
you let Edith come when she likes? There's nothing the matter. It's simply
her children--they take up her time."

"No," said Deborah calmly, "it's I. She as good as told me so last month.
She thinks I've become a perfect fanatic--without a spare moment or
thought for my family."

"Oh, my family!" Roger groaned. "I tell you, Deborah, you're wrong! Edith's
children are probably sick in bed!"

"Then I'll go and see," she answered.

* * * * *

"Something has happened to Deborah," Edith informed him blithely, over the
telephone the next night.

"Has, eh," grunted Roger.

"Yes, she was here to see me to-day. And something has happened--she's
changing fast. I felt it in all kinds of ways. She was just as dear as she
could be--and lonely, as though she were feeling her age. I really think we
can do something now."

"All right, let's do something," Roger growled.

And Edith began to do something. Her hostility to her sister had completely
disappeared. In its place was a friendly affection, an evident desire to
please. She even drew Laura into the secret, and there was a gathering of
the clan. There were consultations in Roger's den. "Deborah is to get
married." The feeling of it crept through the house. Nothing was said to
her, of course, but Deborah was made to feel that her two sisters had drawn
close. And their influence upon her choice was more deep and subtle than
she knew. For although Roger's family had split so wide apart, between his
three daughters there were still mysterious bonds reaching far back into
nursery days. And Deborah in deciding whether to marry Allan Baird was
affected more than she was aware by the married lives of her sisters. All
she had seen in Laura's menage, all that she had ever observed in Edith's
growing family, kept rising from time to time in her thoughts, as she
vaguely tried to picture herself a wife and the mother of children.

So the f