"Is papa so very much worse to-day, mamma?" asked Tom.

"I did not say he was worse, Tom," replied Mrs. Channing. "I said he
had passed a restless night, and felt tired and weak."

"Thinking over that confounded lawsuit," cried hot, thoughtless Tom.

"Thomas!" reproved Mrs. Channing.

"I beg your pardon, mamma. Unorthodox words are the fashion in school,
and one catches them up. I forget myself when I repeat them before
you."

"To repeat them before me is no worse than repeating them behind me,
Tom."

Tom laughed. "Very true, mamma. It was not a logical excuse. But I am
sure the news, brought to us by the mail on Wednesday night, is enough
to put a saint out of temper. Had there been anything unjust in it, had
the money not been rightly ours, it would have been different; but to
be deprived of what is legally our own--"

"Not legally--as it turns out," struck in Hamish.

"Justly, then," said Tom. "It's too bad--especially as we don't know
what we shall do without it."

"Tom, you are not to look at the dark side of things," cried Constance,
in a pretty, wilful, commanding manner. "We shall do very well without
it: it remains to be proved whether we shall not do better than with