"Then he shouldn't have had them," retorted Reba promptly; "especially
not two of them. There's such a thing as a man's being too lavish with
babies when he has no intention of doing anything for them but bring
them into the world. If you had a living income, it would be one
thing, but it makes me burn to have you stitching on coats to feed and
clothe your half-brother's children!"

"Perhaps it doesn't make any difference--now!" sighed Letty, pushing
back her hair with an abstracted gesture. "I gave up a good deal for
the darlings once, but that's past and gone. Now, after all, they're
the only life I have, and I'd rather make coats for them than for
myself."

Letty Boynton had never said so much as this to Mrs. Larrabee in the
three years of their friendship, and on her way back to the parsonage,
the minister's wife puzzled a little over the look in Letty's face
when she said, "David seemed to think there could be no question of
any life of my own"; and again, "I gave up a good deal for the
darlings once!"

"Luther," she said to the minister, when the hymns had been chosen,
the sermon pronounced excellent, and they were toasting their toes
over the sitting-room fire,--"Luther, do you suppose there ever was
anything between Letty Boynton and your Dick?"

"No," he answered reflectively, "I don't think so. Dick always admired
Letty and went to the house a great deal, but I imagine that was
chiefly for David's sake, for they were as like as peas in a pod in
the matter of mischief. If there had been more than friendship between