"But he'd get us fast enough if the insurance was taken off," declared
Jane. "Do you know, Dicky," she went on, "how much that item costs us a
year? Or have you any idea how much it has amounted to in the last
twenty, without our ever getting one cent back? Well, there's ten
thousand in the Hartford and eight in the Monongahela and eleven in--"

"Dear me, Jane!" exclaimed her brother, in some surprise; "where do you
pick up all this?"

Rosy turned her head half round. "Mr. Brower tells her," she said, with a
disdainful brevity.

Her face was indistinct in the twilight, but if its expression
corresponded with the inflection of her voice, her nostrils were inflated
and her lips were curled in disparagement. To Jane, in her dark corner of
the carriage, this was patent enough. Indeed, it was sufficiently obvious
to all that Jane's years availed little to save her from the searching
criticism of her younger sister, and that Miss Rosamund Marshall bestowed
but slight esteem--or, at least, but slight approval--upon Mr. Theodore
Brower.

"Supposing he _does_ tell me!" called Jane, absurdly allowing herself to
be put on the defensive. "It's a mighty good thing, I take it. If there's
anybody else in the family but me who knows or cares anything about poor
pa's business, I should like to be told who it is!"

"That will do, Jane," sounded her mother's voice in cold correction.
"There's no need for you to talk so. Your father has run his own business
now for thirty-five years, with every year better than the year before,
and I imagine he knows how to look out for himself. Thank goodness, we