The Wheeler house was good, modern and commonplace. Walter Wheeler
and his wife were like the house. Just as here and there among the
furniture there was a fine thing, an antique highboy, a Sheraton
sideboard or some old cut glass, so they had, with a certain
mediocrity their own outstanding virtues. They liked music, believed
in the home as the unit of the nation, put happiness before undue
ambition, and had devoted their lives to their children.

For many years their lives had centered about the children. For
years they had held anxious conclave about whooping cough, about
small early disobediences, later about Sunday tennis. They stood
united to protect the children against disease, trouble and eternity.

Now that the children were no longer children, they were sometimes
lonely and still apprehensive. They feared motor car accidents,
and Walter Wheeler had withstood the appeals of Jim for a half dozen
years. They feared trains for them, and journeys, and unhappy
marriages, and hid their fears from each other. Their nightly
prayers were "to keep them safe and happy."

But they saw life reaching out and taking them, one by one. They
saw them still as children, but as children determined to bear their
own burdens. Jim stayed out late sometimes, and considered his
manhood in question if interrogated. Nina was married and out of
the home, but there loomed before them the possibility of maternity
and its dangers for her. There remained only Elizabeth, and on her
they lavished the care formerly divided among the three.

It was their intention and determination that she should never know