"This morning," informed Mrs. Jenkins proudly, "Bud had an offer. As soon as the theatre shuts down, Mr. Vedder is going to take Bud to a big resort and manage him for the season. He'll git lots of money. I wouldn't let Bud go off with no one else, but Mr. Vedder is so nice, and he says when Bud goes to the country in the fall he kin come into the city Saturday nights on the Interurban and sing in the choir Sundays and come back Monday. He kin stay with him, Mr. Vedder says. And the country air and the fresh milk and eggs, will make a diff'rent boy of him. It's what the doctor says he'd orter hev." "Then, we'll go, of course," declared Amarilly resolutely. "And, Amarilly," said the Boarder gravely, "your ma ain't said why she wanted to go, but think of the diff'rence it will make in her life. To be sure, she will have to work hard, but with you, Lily Rose, and Co to help her, it won't be so hard, and it'll be higher class work than slushing around in tubs and water, and she'll hev good feedin' and good air, and we'll all feel like we was folks and our own bosses." "Ma, I was selfish!" cried Amarilly remorsefully. "I'll work like a hired man!" Amarilly thereupon bravely assumed a cheerful mien and looked over the Boarder's figures, listening with apparently great enthusiasm to the plans and projects. But when she was upstairs in her own little bed and each and every other Jenkins was wrapt in happy slumber, she turned her face to the wall, and wept long, silently, and miserably. Far-away fields and pastures did not look alluring to this little daughter of the city who put bricks and mortar and lighted streets above trees and meadows, for Amarilly was entirely metropolitan; sky-scrapers were her birthright, and she loved every inch of her city. "But it's best for them," she acknowledged. A little pang came with the realization that they who had been so dependent upon her guardianship for guidance were entirely competent to act without her. "It's Flam. He's growed up!" she sobbed, correctness of speech slipping from her in her grief. "And he don't know near so much as I do, only he's a man--or going to be--so what he says goes." And with this bitter but inevitable recognition of the things that are, Amarilly sobbed herself to sleep. CHAPTER XXVII The next morning Amarilly served Derry's breakfast in heavy-hearted silence, replying in low-voiced monosyllables to his gay, conversational advances. She performed her household duties about the studio listlessly though with conscientious thoroughness. When it came time to prepare luncheon, Derry called her into the studio. "Come here to the light, where I can see you best, Amarilly." Reluctantly she came. He turned his searching, artist's eyes upon her unsparingly, noting the violet shadows under the white-lidded eyes, and the hard, almost tragic lines in the drooping of her mobile mouth. She bore his gaze unflinchingly, with indrawn breath and clenched hands.