fifty cents an hour, or some
such starvation wages."

Mrs. Mortimer's bitterly acquired sense of values revolted at this.
"What are you talking about, Lydia? Fifty cents an hour starvation
wages!"

"Well, perhaps it was five cents an hour. I don't remember. And he
worked with his hands and was always in danger of getting shot through
with a million volts of electricity or mashed with a breaking fly-wheel
or something. He said electricians were the soldiers of modern
civilization. I told that to a German woman we met on the boat when she
said Americans have no courage because they don't fight duels. The
idea!"

She began pulling off her gloves, with a quick energetic gesture. Mrs.
Mortimer went on, "Well, he certainly has a brilliant future before
him. Everybody says that--" She stopped, struck by her rather heavy
emphasis on the theme and by a curious look from Lydia. The girl did not
blush, she did not seem embarrassed, but for a moment the childlike
clarity of her look was clouded by an expression of consciousness.

Mrs. Emery made a rush upon her, drawing her away toward the door with a
displeased look at Marietta. "Never mind about Paul's prospects," she
said. "With Lydia just this minute home, to begin gossiping about the
neighbors! Come up to your room, darling, and see the little outdoor
sitting-room we've had fixed over the porch."

Mrs. Mortimer was not given to bearing chagrin, even a passing one, with
undue self-restraint. She threw into the intonation of her next sentence
her resentment at the rebuke from her mother. "I still live, you know,
even if Lydia has come home!" As Mrs. Emery turned with a look of
apology, she added, "Oh, I only wanted to make you turn around so that I
could tell you that I am going to bring my two men-folks over here
to-night, to the gathering of the clans, and that I must go home until
then. Dr. Melton and Aunt Julia are coming, aren't they?"

"Oh, yes!" cried Lydia. "It doesn't seem to me I can wait to see
Godfather. I sort of half hoped he might be here now."

"Well, _Lydia_!" her mother reproached her jealously.

"Oh, you might as well give in, Mother, Lydia likes the little old
doctor better than any of the rest of us."

"He talks to me," said Lydia defensively.

"_We_ never say a word," commented Mrs. Mortimer.

Lydia broke away from her mother's close clasp and ran back to her
sister. She was always running, as though to keep up with the rapidity
of her swift i