Fox evaded this question for the time, at any rate. "Why have you thought of giving it up now, Sally? Do the poor kids prove too trying?" Sally nodded. "I am ashamed of it. I'm not fitted for it. I haven't patience enough--with stupidity. But what did you mean by saying that I would have to give it up soon?" "Why," Fox replied, casting an embarrassed glance in Mrs. Ladue's direction, "when you are married, you know--" "Oh," Sally cried with a quick and vivid blush--a rush of blood to the head, no less,--"oh, but I shan't. I never shall." Mrs. Ladue appeared to think it a fitting time to slip away quietly. "I didn't mean," Sally went on rapidly, "to be idle. I--well, to tell you a secret, Fox, one that I didn't mean to tell yet--I have an idea." "Behold me suitably surprised! Sally has an idea!" Sally chuckled, which represented the height of Fox's ambition for the moment. "Don't make fun of me, or I won't tell you what it is." "I am most seriously inclined, Sally. And a bank safe--or a strong box--is not so secret as I am. You observe that I do not use the ancient simile of the grave. There are many things that keep a secret better than a grave. I am listening." With that, he inclined his head toward her. "I might box your ear instead of telling you," said Sally lightly, "but I won't. You know," she continued, hesitating a little, "that Uncle John's business has been--well, just kept alive, until they should decide what to do with it." Fox nodded, wondering what she was coming at. "And I was in Uncle John's office every day for years. I got much interested. And I--I believe that I could do something with it, Fox, after I had served my apprenticeship at it. I think I should like to try. The clerks and things--the machinery of the business--are there." Fox wondered what the clerks and things would have thought of it. "I wish I had spoken to Dick about it. He'll be away, now, for a month. But I could write to him, couldn't I? I will." "There is a good deal in this idea of yours, Sally," was Fox's only comment. He was looking at her with a little smile of amusement. "Don't you want to vote?" he asked abruptly. "No, I don't," she answered as abruptly. "But I thought that it would be a great pity to let an old established business just vanish. And they all seem so proud of it. And perhaps Charlie could get into it when he is through college. At least, if he was disposed to, it would--it might give us--mother and me--some control over him again. Don't you think so, Fox?" Fox shook his head gravely. "I don't know, Sally. The idea strikes me as a good one; a good one for you. I think I should go rather slow about Charlie." "Well--" Sally turned. "It is a secret, you know, Fox." "Between you and me, Sally," Fox returned gently. Sally returned to her contemplation of the woods. She seemed to note something. "I believe," she said suddenly, "that those trees are good to climb." "Why," said Fox, smiling, "I believe they are."