“Why not give it all up to mother?” said Benjamin.  “It will only be enough to keep her in comfort.”

“No doubt you think that would be a most excellent arrangement,” John answered, “inasmuch as you being the youngest would naturally live with her, and share the benefits, and in the end hope to fall heir to the whole, by skilful management.  Pretty sharp, Benny!  I see you have an eye to business.”

“I am willing to go to the end of the earth and never set foot in the house again, nor get a cent,” Ben exclaimed indignantly, “if mother can have a place of her own to live in comfort while she does live.”

“Hold on, my dear boy!  Who said she was not going to live in comfort?  I believe we all have comfortable homes, and it will be much more sensible for her to live amongst us than try to keep house, and take care of this place.  Women always let property run down; it will only be a trouble.”

After much talk and some bickerings, it was arranged that mother had better not try to keep house, but would spend a year or two at a time around among them all.

“A year or two in a place,” burst out Benjamin again.  “The idea of mother running about like that, begging to be taken in, no place that she can call home; it’s too bad!  This place is hers, she helped to earn it, and father meant she should have it all; I heard him say so.”

“Really, Benjie!” Mrs. Sinclair said, “you are getting excited.  Mother does not care for the property; it would only be a trouble to her; she will live much more easily with us.  You ought to see that we propose to be quite generous with mother.  Of course the interest of her share will not pay her board anywhere else, but we shall take turns in keeping her, for that, besides making her presents of clothing.”

“Keep her!” Ben groaned.

“Perhaps Benny proposes to set up housekeeping on his own account, soon,” said John, “then mother will have a royal place to go to, and stay, no doubt.”

“By the way, my dear young brother, do you think it quite the thing for you to come around finding fault with us who propose to bear all the burdens ourselves, knowing that you haven’t a cent to give toward it?”

The young man restrained the bitter answer that was rising to his lips, for father’s mild eye looked into his from the photograph on the wall.  He made a firm resolve, though, as he walked sadly away, that the one purpose of his life should be to make a home for mother, and he would never say “burden,” either.

Dear old Mrs. Kensett was so smitten, so amazed to find that her other self had gone—­where she could not follow, that for days it seemed as if she sat waiting, expecting the summons to go herself.