every soul-storm I have ever had, and she is the most dear and
irresponsible parent an executive girl would wish to have leave her
affairs alone. As for daddy, he has always smiled and beckoned me away
from her into a corner and given me what I was making a stand for. My
father loves me with such confidence that he pays no attention to me
whatever except when he thinks it is about time for him to write my name
on a check. His phosphate deals have made him rich in an
un-Hayesboro-like way, and all the boys are in business for him in
different states, except the oldest one, who is Congressman from this
district, and one other who is in a Chicago bank. Yes, I know I have the
most satisfactorily aloof family in the wide world. I can just go on
feeding on their love and depend upon them not to interfere with any of
my plans for living life. However, if anything happens to me I can be
sure that their love will spring up and growl.

Now, when I stalked into the room and asked about the Crittenden home,
daddy reared his head from his evening paper and immediately took notice
of whatever it was in my voice that sounded as if something had hurt me.

"Daddy," I asked him, with a little gulp, "did Sam--Sam sell his
ancestral home even to the third and fourth generation and go to farming
just for sheer wickedness?"

"No, madam, he did not," he answered, looking at me over his glasses,
and I could see a pain straighten out the corners of his mouth under his
fierce white mustache. "The judge's debts made a mortgage that nicely
blanketed the place, and Sam had only to turn it over to the creditors
and walk out to that little two-hundred-acre brier-patch the judge had
forgot to mortgage."