and without further comment handed his wife Saunders' note. She read
it rapidly, this time with no perplexity, and laid it down, saying to
her husband, briefly, "Will you kindly remember that the children are
here?"

Judith looked at Sylvia in astonishment, this being the first time
that that well-worn phrase, so familiar to most children, had ever
been heard in the Marshall house. Why shouldn't Father remember they
were there? Couldn't he _see_ them? Judith almost found the idea funny
enough to laugh at, although she had not at all in general Sylvia's
helpless response to the ridiculous. Sylvia did not laugh now. She
looked anxiously at her father's face, and was relieved when he only
answered her mother's exhortation by saying in a low tone: "Oh, I have
nothing to say. It's beyond words!"

Luncheon went on as usual, with much chatter among the children. Some
time later--in the midst of a long story from Lawrence, Mrs. Marshall
herself brought up the subject again. Buddy was beginning to struggle
with the narrative form of self-expression, and to trip his tongue
desperately over the tenses. He had just said, "And the rabbit _was_
naughty, didn't he was?" when his mother exclaimed, addressing her
husband's grim face, "Good Heavens, don't take it so hard, Elliott."

He raised an eyebrow, but did not look up from the pear he was
eating. "To be responsible, as I feel I am, for the pitching into a
_cul-de-sac_ of the most promising young--"

His wife broke in, "_Responsible_! How in the world are _you_
responsible!" she added quickly, as if at random, to prevent the reply
which her husband was evidently about to cast at her. "Besides, how do