“All right,” said Amos, hastily.  “We’ll do anything she wants, now, eh, Kent?”

“You bet,” replied the young man.

That night, after Kent had gone, Lydia stood long at the living-room window which gave on the front gate.  The pine, its boughs powdered with snow, kept its lonely vigil over the cottage.

“Yes,” whispered Lydia, finally, “your last friend has deserted you, but I guess I’m keeping faith with Kent and Dad, anyhow.”

Then she went to bed.

For a day or so Lydia avoided Billy Norton.  But she was restless and unhappy and found it difficult to keep her mind on her college work.  Finally, she timed her return from the dairy school, one afternoon, to coincide with Billy’s home-coming from his office and she overtook him Just beyond the end of the street-car line.  The sun was sinking and the wind was rising.

“Billy!” called Lydia.

He turned and waited for her with a broad smile.

“Billy,” she said without preliminaries, “I gave in!”

“Lydia!” he gasped.

“I couldn’t stand their pleading.  I gave in.  I hate myself, but Dad looks ten years younger!”

“You actually mean you’re letting yourself get mixed up with the Whiskey Trust and that pup of a Dave Marshall?”

Lydia plodded doggedly through the snow.  “Of course, Kent’s tending to all that, I refuse to be told the details.”

“Lydia!” cried Billy again and there was such a note of pain in his voice that she turned her face to his with the same dogged look in her eyes that had been expressed in her walk.

“Why,” he said, “what am I going to do without you to look up to—­to live up to?  You can’t mean it!”

“But I do mean it.  I fought and fought and I have for years till I’m sick of it.  Now, at least, there’ll be no more poverty for Dad to complain of.”

  “’Just for a handful of silver he left us,
  Just for a ribband to wear in his coat,’”

quoted Billy bitterly.  “Lydia, I can’t believe it!”

“It’s true,” repeated Lydia.  “I couldn’t stand Kent and Dad both.  And partly I did it for John Levine’s memory.  I’m not trying to justify myself Billy.  I know that I’m doing something wrong, but I’ve definitely made up my mind to sacrifice my own ease of conscience to Dad’s happiness.”

“You can’t do it!  You aren’t built that way,” exclaimed Billy.

“But I am doing it,” reiterated Lydia.

“Look here,” he cried, eagerly, “do you expect to keep my respect and yet go on with this?”

Lydia did not reply for some time.  They were nearing the cottage, and she could see the pine, black against the afterglow, when she said,

“Well, I’m not keeping my own self-respect and yet, I’m glad I’m making Dad and Kent happy.”

“Kent!  Wait till I see him!”

“You can’t change Kent, if I couldn’t,” replied Lydia.