Mary smiled.  “Thank you for saying it, dear,” she said, “and I know you mean it; but it would be no use to offer; they wouldn’t take it.”

“I know they wouldn’t.  So we must try and make it up to them in some other way.  But suppose we leave that for a time and get back to my work.  I’m going to keep on with it; I want to and you say that you want me to.”

“I do, very much.  I am sure you will be happier in that work than in any other, and besides—­I suppose I am ever so unpractical, but I do feel it—­I had rather you made your own way.  Somehow the idea of our depending upon that money out there doesn’t—­doesn’t—­Oh, I can’t explain exactly, but I don’t like the idea a bit.”

“I know.  I prefer to paddle my own canoe, if I can.  But a young doctor’s canoe is likely to move pretty slowly at first.  And I intend taking a passenger, you know, and I want her to be comfortable.”

Mary laughed, a contented little laugh.  “She will be,” she declared.  “Did I tell you of the talk Uncle Shad and I had the other day?  He saw me sitting by the dining-room window looking out at nothing in particular—­and looking silly enough, too, I dare say—­and he asked me what I was thinking.  I said, ‘Nothing much,’ which wasn’t true, and he said nothing must be good to think of, I looked so cheerful.  I told him I was.  Then I asked him—­my conscience troubled me a little, you know—­if he was sure that he and Uncle Zoeth were happy, because I shouldn’t be unless they were.”

“Well, that was characteristic.  What did he say to that?”

“Oh, he laughed that big laugh of his and told me not to worry.  ’I’m feelin’ pretty average satisfied with life just now, Mary-’Gusta,’ he said, ‘and as for Zoeth—­well, he asked me this mornin’ if I didn’t cal’late ’twas wicked for him and me to be so contented with the things of this world, so I know he’s all right.  When Zoeth gets real happy he always begins to feel sinful.’  I hope that a consciousness of sin isn’t the only test of happiness,” she added, “because I don’t believe you feel wicked the least bit.  At least you have never said you did.”

Crawford laughed, and there followed one of those interruptions to conversation with which, although undoubtedly interesting to the participants, outsiders are not supposed to be concerned.  When it was over Mary said: 

“Of course I am not so foolish as to mean that you must not touch the money your father left.  That would be ridiculous.  But I mean I think we should not depend upon it; it should not change our plans or spoil your life work, or anything like that.  It will make life easier for us, of course, and with its help we can make it easier for other people.  I think that is what we should do with it.”

“So do I, my dear.  And our first duty, it seems to me, is toward your uncles.  If they would consent, and I suppose there isn’t the least chance that they would, I should like to sell out the store and the Lookout and the rest of it and take them with us, wherever we decide to go, and give them an easy, carefree time of it the rest of their lives.”