of the dishes.
He had arrived home but an hour before from the trip to Vermont, whither he had gone to look at a farm that was for sale at a low price. The days of his absence had been a time of anxiety for his sister, and of eager expectations for his wife. Jennie was hovering about him now, interrupting him occasionally with a chirp of assent as she helped to clear off the table. She resembled a sparrow whose mate has just brought home a new twig for the nest.
Tom talked on in his large, complacent voice.
He was immense, pleased with his "find." The farm was all and more than it had professed to be. The house was in good repair, the location charming and healthful, the land rich and under a good degree of cultivation, with a convenient market for its produce. He had all but said that he would take it.
"A grand place for the babies to play," he said. " No one will have to stop work to cart them out into the street for the air. No brick walls, no dust, no noise. You and Marion will have nothing to interrupt you from morning till night. The nearest neighbor is half a mile away, and it's two miles to the village. That needn't bother us any; we'll have a car, of course, and when the children get old enough to go to school, Marion here can teach them all they need to know. She's always been crazy to teach. How about that, Marion? " raising his voice unnecessarily. " It isn't every family that has a schoolmarm all ready-made."
But Marion did not answer. The gentle clatter of the spoons in the dish-pan might have drowned his question. He did not stop to see.
The girl in the darkened kitchen caught her breath in a half-sobbing sigh, and the tears came into her eyes; but she kept her peace and went on with her task.
I'm going to see Matthews in the morning," went on Tom joyously. "If he sticks to his offer about buying this house, I'll accept it and bind the bargain for the farm to-morrow. Then how soon do you two ladies think you can get ready to move? If Matthews buys this house, he's likely to want possession at once."
Marion gasped, and drew her hands from the dish-water suddenly. She hesitated for an instant, then appeared like a wraith at the dining-room door, her wet hands clasped, her delicate face looking ghastly white against the dark background of the kitchen.
"Tom! " she said in an agonized voice, " Tom! "
Tom wheeled about his chair and faced her, startled from his contented planning.
"Tom! You're not going to sell this house! The house that Father worked so hard to buy and to pay off the mortgage! Our home! My—my home! Tom, you know what Father said."
The last words were almost a cry of distress.
Tom frowned uneasily. Jennie's face grew red with anger.
"That's just like you, Marion Warren! " she burst out hotly. " Three little children that you profess to love, your own nephews and niece, languishing in the crowded city air, and needing the lovely country and a chance to play on the green grass, and you letting a mere sentimental fancy for a little old house stand in the way of their life, perhaps! "
Jennie's eyes flashed sparks of steel as gray eyes can do sometimes. Marion shrank from their glance, her very soul quivering with their misunderstanding of her.
' O, now, Marion," began Tom's smooth tones, " that's all bosh about Father's slaving to pay for this house. Sentimental bosh," he added, catching at his wife's adjective. "He worked hard, of course. All men with a family do. I work hard myself. But you know perfectly well that Father wouldn't have hung on to this particular house just because he had worked hard to pay for it, if he had a good chance to better himself. It isn't throwing it away to change it into something better, and this is a great opportunity. As for its being your home, why, you'll have a home with us wherever we go; so you needn't get up any such foolish ideas as that. The farm'll be your home as much as this is in three months' time. Don't be a fool."
He said it kindly in his elder-brother way; but Marion's face grew whiter, and she stood looking at him as if she could not believe what he had said.
Her great dark eyes made him uncomfortable. He turned from her, and went to wind the clock.
"Come, hurry up, Jennie," he said with a yawn. "Let's get to sleep. I'm about played out. It's been a hard day, and I must get up early in the morning to catch Matthews before he goes to the store."
Marion dropped silently back into the kitchen, and finished her dishes. Jennie came in presently, and turned on the light with an energetic click, looking suspiciously at the silent figure wringing out the dish-towels; but Marion's face was turned from her, and she could not see whether or not there were traces of tears upon it. Marion hung up the dish-towels on the little rack beside the range and went silently upstairs.
Jennie listened until she heard the door of Marion's room close; then she went back to her husband.
"Do you think she'll make trouble about selling" this house?" she asked anxiously.
"Trouble? Pooh! She'll not make trouble," he said in his complacent voice that always soothed his wife. "She'll have her little cry over giving it up, but she'll be all right in the morning."
"But doesn't she own half of it?" queried the wife sharply. "Hasn't she a right by law to object?"'
"Yes, she owns half of it but she'll never object. Why, she'd give me her head if I told her she ought to," said the husband, laughing.
"She might give you her head," said Jennie with a, toss of her own; "but she's got a terrible will of her own sometimes, and I've an idea she's got it on the brain to go to normal school, yet."
"Nonsense!" said her husband, ponderously. "She's too old! Why, she's almost twenty-three."
"Well, you'll see!"
"Well, you'll see. I guess my sister has some sense! Come let's shut up shop."
Marion locked her bedroom door, and went straight to her white bed, kneeling beside it and burying her face in the pillow.
"O Father, Father," she whispered, "what shall I do? How can I bear it?"
Long after the house was silent she knelt there trying to think. By and by she crept over to her back window, and, sitting in her willow chair, rested her cheek against the window-frame. The spring air stole in and fanned her cheeks, and blew the tendrils of damp hair away from her temples soothingly, like a tender hand.
The Warren home was a pleasant red-brick house with white marble trimmings and marble steps. It was in a nice, respectable neighborhood, with plain, well-to-do neighbors, and neat back yards meeting on a cement-paved alleyway. In a few weeks now these back yards would be carpeted with well-kept turf and borders of gay flowers. Her own crocuses and hyacinths and daffodils that her beloved father had taught her to care for were even now beginning to peep through the earth. Her window had always framed for her a pleasant world of sights and sounds that were comfortable and prosperous. She loved to watch and compare the growing things in the green back yards, or to enjoy their clean white coverings in winter; and she knew every varying phase of cloud or clearness in the bit of sky overhead. She looked up now, a broken moon beamed kindly down between dark, tattered clouds.
Within, the room was a white haven of rest. The simple enamel bed with brass trimmings, the white bureau and wash-stand, the willow chair, the plain muslin curtains, and the gray rugs with pink borders had all been the gift of her loving father. They represented sacrifice and extra night-work after the wearisome day's toil was completed, and some had been acquired
