Doctor Galen had nodded, in answer to that glance of Fox's. "You needn't worry about your mother, Sally," he said then. "We would take good care of her. Do you know that I have a sanitarium for just such patients? There are nurses and everything to make it convenient. And there are no bothering children--with their brothers--always underfoot." As he said that, the doctor smiled and rested his hand, for a moment, on Henrietta's shoulder. Henrietta turned and laughed up at him. "A base libel," Fox remarked. "But all that doesn't take care of Charlie." "Might farm him out," the doctor suggested. "What do you think of that idea, Sally?" "I don't believe I know what you mean," she answered. "Charlie wouldn't be much good on a farm, although I suppose a farm would be a good place for him. Some farms would," she added. "It depends on the farm, doesn't it?" said Fox. "It generally does. But don't you care what the doctor meant, Sally. He didn't mean anything, probably. We aren't going to farm Charlie out anyway. What shall I say to Martha? That's the immediate point." Sally chuckled. "I'll write to Martha," she said, as soon as she could speak; "that is, if you'll let me. I'll thank her ever so much for offering to take me, and I'll tell her why I can't come. May I, Fox?" "All right." Fox tossed her the letter. "And, Sally," he called softly, for she had started into the house, meaning to write her letter at once. "Sally, if Martha answers your letter, you tell me what she says." So Sally wrote to Martha. It took her a long time and she used up several sheets of her mother's best note-paper before she got a letter written that she was satisfied to send. Miss Hazen was longer in replying, although she was not so long as she had been in replying to Fox. Sally did not care. Indeed, she did not give the matter a thought. She considered the question settled. It was not. Miss Hazen must have liked Sally's letter, for she grudgingly consented to have Charlie come, too, if that was all that stood in the way of Sally's acceptance of her offer. This was a surprise to everybody; to none of them more than to Miss Hazen herself. She had no liking for young children. But she did it. There seemed to be no escape for Sally now, and she put the letter in Fox's hand without a word. "What's the matter, Sally?" he asked, shocked at her tragic face. "Has the bottom dropped out?" Sally smiled, but her chin quivered. "It seems to me that it has. You read it, Fox." So Fox read it. He was very sober when he looked up and it was a long time before he spoke. "Well," he said at last, whimsically, "Martha's put her foot in it this time, hasn't she? What do you think you're going to do?" "I don't see how I can refuse any longer," Sally answered, her voice quivering as well as her chin. "Charlie was the only objection that I could think of; the only real objection. I s'pose I'll have to go now, and take Charlie." Fox did not reply immediately.