come right, somehow."

But father made up his mind that we could not afford to keep the
place. He should pay his debts, now, the first thing. What was left
must do for us; the house must go into the estate.

It was fixed, though, that we should stay there for the summer,--until
affairs were settled.

"It's a dumb shame!" said Aunt Trixie.




CHAPTER X.

RUTH'S RESPONSIBILITY.


The June days did not make it any better. And the June nights,--well,
we had to sit in the "front box at the sunset," and think how there
would be June after June here for somebody, and we should only have
had just two of them out of our whole lives.

Why did not grandfather give us that paper, when he began to? And what
could have become of it since? And what if it were found some time,
after the dear old place was sold and gone? For it was the "dear old
place" already to us, though we had only lived there a year, and
though Aunt Roderick did say, in her cold fashion, just as if we could
choose about it, that "it was not as if it were really an old