"It's his daughter," they whispered as soon as Josiah was out of hearing.
Here and there one would stop smiling and say, "I remember the day he
brought her mother through--"

At the end of one of the workshops, Mr. Spencer looked at his watch
again.

"We'd better get back to the office," he said. "Tired, dear?"

In a rapture of denial, she kicked her little toes against his side.

"Bred in the bone..." he mused. "Eh, if she had only been a boy...!" But
that was past all sighing for, and in the distance he saw Cousin Stanley,
just back from Boston, evidently coming to find him.

Mary, too, was watching the approaching figure. She had sometimes seen
him at the house and had formed against him one of those instinctive
dislikes which few but children know. As Stanley drew near she turned her
head and buried her face against her father's shoulder.

"Good news?" asked Josiah.

"Good news, of course," said Stanley, speaking as an irresistible force
might speak, if it were endowed with a tongue. "When Spencer & Son start
out for a thing, they get it." You could tell that what he meant was
"When Stanley Woodward starts out for a thing, he gets it." His elbows
suddenly grew restless. "It will take a lot of money," he added. "Of
course we shall have to increase the factory here--"