er, "but of course you may be right.
If you take the proper care of me here--and John keeps booming things for
the firm--"

"And George makes a huge success of the farm," Deborah added quickly.

"And Deborah of teaching the world--"

"Oh, Allan, hush up!"

"Look here," he said. "You go upstairs and tell Edith all this. Your father
and I want to be alone."

And when the two men were left alone, they smoked and said nothing. They
smiled at each other.

"It's hard to decide," grunted Roger at last. "Which did it--my wonderful
sermon or your own long waiting game? I'm inclined to think it was the
game. For any other man but you--with all you've done, without any
talk--no, sir, there wouldn't have been a chance. For she's modern, Baird,
she's modern. And I'm going to live just as long as I can. I want to see
what happens here."

* * * * *

The next night in his study, how quiet it was. Edith was busy packing
upstairs, Deborah and Allan were gone. Thoughts drifted slowly across his
mind. Well, she was married, the last of his daughters, the one whom he
cared most for, the one who had taken the heaviest risks. And this was the
greatest risk of all. For although she had put it happily out of her
thoughts for the moment, Roger knew the old troublesome question was still
there in Deborah's mind. The tenement children or her own, the big family
or the small? He felt there would still be struggles ahead. And with a kind
of a wistfulness he tried to see into the future here.

He gave a sudden start in his chair.

"By George!" he thought. "They forgot the ring!" Scowling, he tried to
remember. Yes, in the brief simple service that day, in which so much had
been omitted--music, flowers, wedding gown--even the ring had been left
out. Why? Not from any principle, he knew that they were not such fools.
No, they had simply forgotten it, in the haste of getting married at once.
Well, by thunder, for a girl whose father had been a collector of rings for
the best part of his natural life, it was pretty shabby to say the least!
Then he recollected that he, too, had forgotten it. And this quieted him
immediately.

"I'll get one, though," he promised himself. "And no plain wedding ring
either. I'll make A. Baird attend to that. No, I'll get her a ring worth
while."

He sank deep in his chair and took peace to his soul by thinking of the
ring he would choose. And this carried his thoughts back over t