e rose. "They don't fool me. They don't fool any one; they
don't even fool each other. I tell you, my dear," he chirped as he rose
from his chair, "I never saw one of those illicit love affairs in life
or heard of it in literature that was not just plain, old fashion,
downright, beastly selfishness. Duty is a greater thing in life than
what the romance peddlers call love."

The Doctor stood looking at his wife questioningly--waiting for some
approving response. She kept on sewing. "Oh you Satterthwaites with
hearts of marble," he cried as he patted the cast iron waves of her hair
and went chuckling into the house.

Mrs. Nesbit was aroused from her reverie by the rattle of the Adams
buggy. When it drew up to the curb Laura and Grant climbed out and came
up the walk. Laura wore a simple summer dress that brought out all the
exquisite coloring of her skin, and made her light hair shine in a kind
of haloed glory. It had been months since the mother had seen in her
daughter's face such a smile as the daughter gave to the man beside
her--red-faced, angular, hard muscled, in his dingy blue carpenter's
working clothes with his measuring rule and pencil sticking from his
apron pocket, and with his crippled arm tipped by its steel tool-holder.

"Grant is going to take that box of Lila's toys down to the
kindergarten, mother," she explained.

When they had disappeared up the stairs Mrs. Nesbit could hear them on
the floor above and soon the heavy feet of the man carrying a burden
were on the stairs and in another minute the young woman was saying:

"Leave them by the teacher's desk, Grant," and as he untied the horse,
she called, "Now you will get that door in to-night without fail--won't
you? I'll be down and we'll put in the south partition in the morning."
As she turned from the door she greeted her mother with a smile and
dropped wearily into a chair.

"Oh mother," she cried, "it's going to be so fine. Grant has the room
nearly finished and he's interesting the wives of the union men in South
Harvey and George Brotherton is going to give us every month all the
magazines and periodicals that are not returnable and George brought
down a lot of Christmas numbers of illustrated papers, and we're cutting
the bright pictures out and pinning them on the wall and George himself
worked with us all afternoon. George says he is going to make every one
of his lodges contribute monthly to the kindergarten--he belongs to
everything bu