She waited a while before she said, as if feeling her way toward a definite point, "It has been hard work, hasn't it, Adam? Almost too hard, I fear. Did you ever ask yourself if, after all, it is really worth the cost?" "Worth the cost! I am not in the habit of paying more than things are worth. This place cost me exactly--" She interrupted him, quietly, "I don't mean that, dear. I was not thinking of the money. I was thinking of what it has all cost in work and worry and--and other things." "It has all been for you and the children, Alice," he answered, wearily; and there was that in his voice and face which brought the tears to her eyes. "You know that, so far as I am personally concerned, it doesn't mean a thing in the world to me. I don't know anything outside of the Mill myself." She put her hand on his arm with a caressing touch. "I know--I know--and that is just what troubles me. Perhaps if you would share it more--I mean if you could enjoy it more--I might feel different about it. We were all so happy, Adam, in the old house." When he made no reply to this but sat with his eyes fixed on the ground she said, pleadingly, "Won't you put aside all the cares and worries of the Mill now, and just be happy with us, Adam?" The man moved uneasily. "You know what the doctors say," she continued, gently. "You really--" He interrupted impatiently, "The doctors are a set of fools. I'll show them!" She persisted with gentle patience. "But even if the doctors are wrong about your health, still there is no reason why you should not rest after all your years of hard work. I am sure we have everything in the world that any one could possibly want. There is not the shadow of a necessity to make you go on wearing your life out as you have been doing." "Much you know about what is necessary for me to do," he retorted. "A man isn't going to let the business that he has been all his life building up go to smash just because he has made money enough to keep him without work for the rest of his days." "There are other things that can go to smash besides business, Adam," she returned, sadly. "And I am sure that the Mill will be safe enough now in John's hands." "John!" he exclaimed, bitterly. "It's John and his crazy ideas that I am afraid of." She returned, quickly, with a mother's pride, "Why, Adam! You have said so many times how wonderfully well John was doing, and what a splendid head he had for business details and management. It was only last week that you told me John was more capable now than some of the men that have been in the office with you for several years." Adam Ward rose and paced uneasily up and down before her. "You don't understand at all, Alice. It is not John's business ability or his willingness to get into the harness that worries me. It is the fool notions that he picked up somewhere over there in the war--there, and from that meddlesome old socialist basket maker."