it, Lyd?"

"I'd love it!" declared her sister.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Aunt Jane, sitting bolt upright, and looking actually startled. "Ain't that a way out, mebbe?"

"What do you mean, Aunt Jane?" asked Lydia, quickly.

"You know how I'm fixed, girls. Hammond left me just money enough so't I can live as I like to live--and no more. The farm's never been aught but an expense to me. Cyrus Pritchett is supposed to farm a part of it on shares; but my share of the crops never pays more'n the taxes and the repairs to the roofs of the old buildings.

"It'd be a shelter to ye. The furniture stands jest as it did in the old doctor's day. Ye could move right in--and I expect it would mean a lease of life to your father. A second-hand man wouldn't give ye ten dollars for your stuff in that flat. It's ruined. Ye couldn't live comfortable there any more. But if ye wanter go to Hillcrest I'm sure ye air more than welcome to the use of the place, and perhaps ye might git a bigger share of the crops out of Cyrus if ye was there, than I've been able to git.

"What d'you say, girls--what d'you say?"

CHAPTER III

THE DOCTOR DISPOSES

The Bray girls scarcely slept a wink that night. Not alone were they excited by the incidents of the evening, and the sudden illness of their father; but the possibilities arising out of Aunt Jane Hammond's suggestion fired the imagination of both Lyddy and 'Phemie.

These sisters were eminently practical girls, and they came of practical stock--as note the old-fashioned names which their unromantic parents had put upon them in their helpless infancy. Yet there is a dignity to "Lydia" and a beauty to "Euphemia" which the thoughtless may not at once appreciate.

Practical as they were, the thought of going to the old farmhouse to live--if their father could be moved to it at once--added a zest to their present situation which almost made their misfortune seem a blessing.

Their furniture was spoiled, as Aunt Jane had said. And father was sick--a self-evident fact. This sudden ill turn which Mr. Bray had suffered worried both of his daughters more than any other trouble--indeed, more than all the others in combination.

Their home was ruined--but, somehow, they would 

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