“Then—­then a man ought to pay the three hundred a year!” countered Sally.

“Well, I’m with you there.  But the world has got to see that before you can force him.”  The doctor sighed.  “So you won’t let me stand grandfather to your children, Sally?” “Oh, if you were their grandfather’” she answered.  “Then you could do as you liked!”

“There you are, the parasite!” he said, smiling whimsically.  “You’re your mother’s daughter, Sally.  Give you the least blood-claim on a man’s money, and you’ll push it as far as you can.  But offer to pay you for doing the work God meant you to do and you’re cut to the soul.  Well—­”

He was still holding forth eloquently on the subject of children and nations when Martie came back, and Sally, with a scarlet face, was evidently lost in thoughts of her own.

As the girls walked home, Sally did not repeat to Martie her conversation with the old doctor, nor for many weeks afterward.  But Martie did not notice her sister’s indignant silence, for they met Rodney Parker coming out of the Bank, and he walked with them to the bridge, and asked Martie to go with him to see the Poulson Star Stock Company in a Return Engagement Extraordinary on the following night.

Martie was conscious of passing a milestone in her emotional life on the evening of this day, when she said to herself that she loved Rodney Parker.  She admitted it with a sort of splendid shame, as she went about her usual household occupations, passing from the hot pleasantness of the kitchen to the cool, stale odours of the dining room; running upstairs to light the bathroom-and hall-gas for her father and brother, and sometimes stepping for a moment into the darkness of the yard to be alone with her enchanted thoughts.

All the young Monroes regarded their father’s temperamental shortcomings with stoicism, so that it was in no sense resentfully that she faced the inevitable preliminaries that night.

“Pa,” said she cheerfully over the dessert, “you don’t mind if I go to the show with Rodney to-morrow, do you?”

“This is the first I’ve heard of any show,” Malcolm said stiffly, glancing at his wife.  Mrs. Monroe patiently told him what she knew of it.  “Why, no, I suppose there is no reason you shouldn’t go,” he presently said discontentedly.

“Oh, thank you, Pa!” Martie said, with a soaring heart.  He looked at her dispassionately.

“Your sisters and your brother are going, I suppose?” Malcolm asked, glancing about the circle.  Martie told herself she might have known he was not done with the subject so easily.

“I’m not—­because I haven’t the price!” grinned Leonard.  His mother and Lydia laughed.

“I don’t suppose Martie proposes going alone with young Parker?” Malcolm asked in well-assumed amazement.

“Why, Pa—­I don’t see why not” Mrs. Monroe protested weakly.

Her husband was magnificent in his surprise.  He looked about in a sort of royal astonishment.