“I think that’s magnificent of Joe!” Martie said, her face glowing.

“He graduates this year,” Sally said proudly, “and then I think he will start here.  For a long time we thought we’d have to move away then, because every one remembers little Joe Hawkes delivering papers, and working in the express office.  But now that the hospital, up toward the Archer place, is really going to be built, Uncle Ben says that Joe can get a position there.  It’s Dr. Knowles’s hospital, and Uncle Ben is his best friend.  Of course that’s big luck for Joe.”

“Not so much luck,” Martie said generously, “as that Joe has worked awfully hard, and done well.”

“Oh, you don’t know how hard, Mart!  And loving us all as he does, too, and being away from us!” Sally agreed fervently.  “But if he really gets that position, with my hundred, we’ll be rich!  We’ll have to keep a Ford, Mart; won’t that be fun?”

“Dr. Ben might die, Sally,” Martie suggested.

“That wouldn’t make any difference,” the older sister said composedly.  “I have the actual deeds—­the titles, whatever they are--to the property my money comes from.  He gave me them a year ago, when he was sixty.  I certainly dread the talk there’ll be when his will comes to light, but Joe will be here then, and Joe isn’t afraid of any one.”

“He’s done for you what Pa should have done,” Martie mused.

“Oh, well, Pa did his best for us, Mart.”  Sally said dutifully; “he gave us a good home—­”

“Was it a good home?” Martie questioned mildly.

“It was a much finer home than my children have, Mart.”

“As far as walls and tables and silver spoons, I suppose it was.  But, Sally, there’s no child alive who has a sweeter atmosphere than this—­always with mother, always learning, and always considered!  Why, my boy is blooming already in it!”

Sally’s face flushed with pleasure.

“Martie, you make me so proud!”

“If you can only keep it up, Sally.  With me it doesn’t matter so much, because I’ve only the one, and no husband whose claims might interfere.  But when ’Lizabeth and Mary, as well as the boys, are older—­”

“You mean—­always let them have their friends at the house, and so on?” Sally asked slowly.

“Yes, but more than that!  Let them feel as much a part of the world as the boys do.  Put them into any work—­only make them respect it!”

“Pa might have helped us, only neither you nor I, nor Lyd, ever showed the least interest in work,” Sally submitted thoughtfully.

“Neither did Len—­but he made Len!”

“Yes, I see what you mean,” Sally admitted with an awakening face.  “But we would have thought he was pretty stern, Mart,” she added.

“Just as children do when they have to learn to read and write,” countered Martie.  “Don’t you see?”

Sally did not see, but she was glad to see Martie’s interest.  She told Lydia later that Martie really seemed better and more like her old self, even in these few days.