destined in her fancy for something splendid in the way of success or
failure, she knew not which.

And yet nobody could have worked harder or done better in all the
recognized stages of a young man's life than Ralph had done, and Joan
had to gather materials for her fears from trifles in her brother's
behavior which would have escaped any other eye. It was natural that
she should be anxious. Life had been so arduous for all of them from
the start that she could not help dreading any sudden relaxation of
his grasp upon what he held, though, as she knew from inspection of
her own life, such sudden impulse to let go and make away from the
discipline and the drudgery was sometimes almost irresistible. But
with Ralph, if he broke away, she knew that it would be only to put
himself under harsher constraint; she figured him toiling through
sandy deserts under a tropical sun to find the source of some river or
the haunt of some fly; she figured him living by the labor of his
hands in some city slum, the victim of one of those terrible theories
of right and wrong which were current at the time; she figured him
prisoner for life in the house of a woman who had seduced him by her
misfortunes. Half proudly, and wholly anxiously, she framed such
thoughts, as they sat, late at night, talking together over the
gas-stove in Ralph's bedroom.

It is likely that Ralph would not have recognized his own dream of a
future in the forecasts which disturbed his sister's peace of mind.
Certainly, if any one of them had been put before him he would have
rejected it with a laugh, as the sort of life that held no attractions
for him. He could not have said how it was that he had put these
absurd notions into his sister's head. Indeed, he prided himself upon
being well broken into a life of hard work, about which he had no sort