"We shall be very lonely, Emma, when these two are away all day, shan't we? I don't know what we shall do, do you?" Their father spoke half-jestingly, yet there was something in his tone which was far removed from jesting. Tom looked from Bella to his father and back again. With his eyebrows he seemed to be asking her a question, and evidently she understood and signalled her answer. "Father," said Tom nervously, for he was always rather shy of speaking before others, "we've thought out a plan, and we wondered if you'd fall in with it, or--be able to, or----" "Well, my boy, I will if I can, if--well, if it isn't one to benefit me only. It seems to me you're all thinking always what'll be best and pleasantest for me, and I ain't going to have it; I ain't a poor invalid any longer." "Well, it isn't to benefit you only, father," chimed in Bella eagerly; "we think it will be best for all of us, and I think you'll think so too. Go on, Tom." "Well," said Tom, "it's this,--that you go in to the shop every day with Bella; you can keep accounts and do that sort of thing better than I can, and----" he broke off suddenly, almost startled by the look of pleasure which broke over his father's face, the sudden lightening of the sadness which, unconsciously, always showed now in his eyes. To be at work again! to be able to give real help, to be a working partner! To the man who had for so long borne an enforced idleness, who had had to sit by and see others work beyond their strength because he could do nothing to help--it seemed too good to be true, a happiness almost too great. "Do the work?" Of course he could do it. It would put new life into him to be a man again and worker. "But what about you, Tom? It would be a bitter disappointment to give it up, wouldn't it?" "Disappointment?" cried Tom; "why, there's nothing I'd like better. You see, if you can be in the shop, I can stay at home and give all my time to the garden, instead of having only the evenings after I get back. Then Aunt Emma and Charlie and I can look after things here; and, if we run this place, and you and Bella run the other, we ought to get on A1. Don't you agree, everybody?" Tom gained courage as he went on, and, indeed, his father's undisguised pleasure in the plan was enough to encourage any one. But Tom was cautious too. He put all the arguments before his father, as though he had shown reluctance, and had to be won over; for what they wanted, above all things, was to make him feel that his help was really needed. He succeeded in his aim, too, and without any help from Bella, for the pathos of her father's joy brought a lump into her throat and a mist before her eyes that prevented her speaking a word.