strong man of the household found it hard to face the anxious eyes which
searched his, and would have liked, like his eighteen-year-old daughter,
to run to cover. But in an instant, he looked up again and spoke in the
cheery tone they knew so well.

"Now listen, and be brave," he said. "Mother's trouble is like a house
just set on fire. A dash of Water and a blanket--and it is out. Wait
till a whole room is ablaze, and it's a serious matter to stop it. Now,
in our case, we've only the little kindling corner to smother, and the
New Mexico air is water and blanket--a whole fire department, if need
be. The doctor assures me that with mother's good constitution, and the
absence of any hereditary predisposition to this sort of thing, we've
only to give her the ten or twelve months of rest and reënforcement--the
winter in New Mexico, the summer in Colorado--to nip the whole thing in
the bud. I believe him, and you must believe him--and me. More than all,
you must not show the slightest change of front to her. She knows it
all, but she doesn't want you to know. I think differently about that.

"Three of you are men and women now, and the other two," he smiled into
the upturned, eager faces of Jeff and Justin, "are getting to be men.
Even my youngest can be depended upon to act the strong part."

Justin scrambled to his feet at that, and gravely laid a muscular boy's
hand in his father's.

"I'll stand by you, sir," he said.

Nobody laughed. Charlotte's black bow twitched and a queer sound burst
from the shoulder where her head was buried. Jeff's thick black lashes
went down for a moment; Celia shook two bright drops from brimming eyes