“well on in her thirties,” whom they must cherish and preserve.  They both had such solemn thoughts as they looked at Edith in her chair.  But as Roger watched them, with their love and their solemnity, their guilt and their perplexity, with quiet enjoyment he would wait to see the change he knew would come.  And it always did.  The sudden picking up of a book, the vanishing of an anxious frown, and in an instant their young minds had turned happily back into themselves, into their own engrossing lives, their plans, their intimate dreams and ambitions, all so curiously bound up with memories of small happenings which had struck them as funny that day and at which they would suddenly chuckle aloud.

And this was only one stage in their growth.  What would be the next, he asked, and all the others after that?  What kind of world would they live in?  Please heaven, there would be no wars.  Many old things, no doubt, would be changed, by the work of Deborah and her kind—­but not too many, Roger hoped.  And these young people, meanwhile, would be bringing up children in their turn.  So the family would go on, and multiply and scatter wide, never to unite again.  And he thought he could catch glimpses, very small and far away but bright as patches of sunlight upon distant mountain tops, into the widening vista of those many lives ahead.  A wistful look crept over his face.

“In their lives too we shall be there, the dim strong figures of the past.”

* * * * *

Deborah came into the room, and at once the whole atmosphere changed.  Her niece sprang up delightedly.

“Why, Auntie, how lovely you look!” she exclaimed.  And Roger eyed Deborah in surprise.  Though she did not believe in mourning, she had been wearing dark gowns of late to avoid hurting Edith’s feelings.  But to-night she had donned bright colors instead; her dress was as near decollete as anything that Deborah wore, and there was a band of dull blue velvet bound about her hair.

“Thanks, dearie,” she said, smiling.  “Shall we go in to dinner now?” she added to her father.  “Edith said not to wait for her—­and I’ll have to be off rather early this evening.”

“What is it to-night?” he inquired.

“A big meeting at Cooper Union.”

And at dinner she went on to say that in her five schools the neighborhood clubs had combined to hold this meeting, and she herself was to preside.  At once her young niece was all animation.

“Oh, I wish I could go and hear you!” she sighed.

“Afraid you can’t, Betsy,” her aunt replied.  And at this, with an instinctive glance toward the door where her mother would soon come in to stop by her mere presence all such conversation, Elizabeth eagerly threw out one inquiry after the other, pell mell.

“How on earth do you do it?” she wanted to know.  “How do you get a speech ready, Aunt Deborah—­how much of it do you write out ahead?  Aren’t you just the least bit nervous—­now, I mean—­this minute?  And how will you feel on the platform? What on earth do you do with your feet?”