“Tell us plainly, father,” urged Celia’s soft voice.  She was pale, but she spoke quietly.

Charlotte, at the first word of alarm, had turned her face away.  Jeff’s bright black eyes—­he was Charlotte’s counterpart in colouring and looks—­rested anxiously on the second violin’s curly mop of hair, tied at the neck with a big black bow of ribbon.  It was always most expressive to Jeff, that bow of ribbon.

Lansing repeated Celia’s words.  “Yes, tell us plainly, sir.  We’d rather know.”

“I am alarming you,” Mr. Birch said, quickly.  “I knew I could not say the slightest thing about her without doing that.  But I need to talk it over with you all, because if we carry out the doctor’s prescription it means much sacrifice for every one.  I had no doubt that you would make it, but I think it is better for you to understand its importance.  Doctor Forester says New Mexico is an almost certain cure for such trouble as mother’s, if taken early.  And we are taking it early.”

Justin and Jeff looked puzzled, but Celia caught her breath, and Lansing’s ruddy colour suddenly faded.  Charlotte buried her head in her father’s shoulder and drew the scarlet flannel arm tighter about his neck.

The iron-gray head bent over the curly black one for a moment, as if the strong man of the household found it hard to face the anxious eyes which searched his, and would have liked, like his eighteen-year-old daughter, to run to cover.  But in an instant, he looked up again and spoke in the cheery tone they knew so well.

“Now listen, and be brave,” he said.  “Mother’s trouble is like a house just set on fire.  A dash of Water and a blanket—­and it is out.  Wait till a whole room is ablaze, and it’s a serious matter to stop it.  Now, in our case, we’ve only the little kindling corner to smother, and the New Mexico air is water and blanket—­a whole fire department, if need be.  The doctor assures me that with mother’s good constitution, and the absence of any hereditary predisposition to this sort of thing, we’ve only to give her the ten or twelve months of rest and reenforcement—­the winter in New Mexico, the summer in Colorado—­to nip the whole thing in the bud.  I believe him, and you must believe him—­and me.  More than all, you must not show the slightest change of front to her.  She knows it all, but she doesn’t want you to know.  I think differently about that.

“Three of you are men and women now, and the other two,” he smiled into the upturned, eager faces of Jeff and Justin, “are getting to be men.  Even my youngest can be depended upon to act the strong part.”

Justin scrambled to his feet at that, and gravely laid a muscular boy’s hand in his father’s.

“I’ll stand by you, sir,” he said.

Nobody laughed.  Charlotte’s black bow twitched and a queer sound burst from the shoulder where her head was buried.  Jeff’s thick black lashes went down for a moment; Celia shook two bright drops from brimming eyes and patted Just’s sturdy shoulder.  Mr. Birch shook the hand vigorously without speaking, and only Lansing found words to express what they felt.