"Ah!" uttered Robert Garrett in a long-drawn-out syllable, reaching for
the evening paper.

There had been another silent witness of this scene in the person of
a lad who stood within the door he had entered just as Mrs. Blaine had
appeared in the opposite way. He was a rather ill-favored schoolboy,
but his thoughts as he came forward with the lanky awkwardness of youth
and took a chair in chimney corner, were not of himself or his looks.

"Father," he said after some minutes had passed, the rattle of the
newspaper and the measured ticking of the clock being the only
disturbing sounds, "Father," he repeated, this time with a falling
inflection.

Startled uncomfortably at the unexpected address the father peered
frowningly at the boy with a gruff, "What!"

"Do you think it is just the fair and square thing to turn 'em out?"

"What do _you_ know about it, you young meddler. Keep quiet about
what does not concern you. You have enough to eat and wear--attend to
your own business."

There was no encouragement to go on, so young Robert sat and pondered
till his father, chafing under the silent rebuke personified in every
line of the son's uncomely face, sent him to his room.

In the other house there was little sleep; and for many succeeding days
the devoted Blaines, with heavy hearts, put by their idols one by one,