y. Night after night, with a
tensity born of her struggle with her grief, she talked about her children.
And Roger was in Bruce's place, he was the one she planned with. At moments
with a vague dismay he glimpsed the life ahead in his home.

George was hard at work each day down by the broken dam at the mill. He had
an idea he could patch it up, put the old water-wheel back into place and
make it run a dynamo, by which he could light the house and barn and run
the machines in the dairy. In his new role as the man of his family, George
was planning out his career. He was wrestling with a book entitled "Our New
Mother Earth" and a journal called "The Modern Farm." And to Roger he
confided that he meant to be a farmer. He wanted to go in the autumn to the
State Agricultural College. But when one day, very cautiously, Roger spoke
to Edith of this, with a hard and jealous smile which quite transformed her
features, she said,

"Oh, I know all about that, father dear. It's just a stage he's going
through. And it's the same way with Elizabeth, too, and her crazy idea of
becoming a doctor. She took that from Allan Baird, and George took his from
Deborah! They'll get over it soon enough--"

"They won't get over it!" Roger cried. "Their dreams are parts of something
new! Something I'm quite vague about--but some of it has come to stay!
You're losing all your chances--just as I did years ago! You'll never know
your children!"

But he uttered this cry to himself alone. Outwardly he only frowned. And
Edith had gone on to say,

"I do hope that Deborah won't come up this summer. She's been very good and
kind, of course, and if she comes she'll be doing it entirely on my
account. But I don't want her here--I want her to marry, the sooner the
better, and come to her senses--be happy, I mean. And I wish you would tell
her so."

Within a few days after this Deborah wrote to her father that she was
coming the next week. He said nothing to Edith about it at first, he had
William saddled and went for a ride to try to determine what he should do.
But it was a ticklish business. For women were queer and touchy, and once
more he felt the working of those uncanny family ties.

"Deborah," he reflected, "is coming up here because she feels it's selfish
of her to stay away. If she marries at once, as she told me herself, she
thinks Edith will be hurt. Edith won't be hurt--and if Deborah comes,
there'll be trouble every minute she stays. But c