"I think I owe it to Mr. Greggs almost as much as to Mother, to have you at a safe distance before the ripping begins," said Doctor Hugh a little grimly. "Somehow I have the feeling, Sarah, that the best-laid plans of architects may go awry when you're about." "Huh!" retorted Sarah, abandoning blue prints for her favorite goatskin rug on which she flopped in an attitude more comfortable than graceful. Shirley, too, wearying of the unfamiliar, turned to the delights of the iron wastebasket into which she tried to wedge her plump self with indifferent success and a great crackling of paper. Doctor Hugh began to sharpen a pencil with meticulous care, his dark eyes behind their glasses apparently intent on the task in hand. But the more discerning of his patients, and every nurse who had served on his cases, could have told you that Doctor Willis always saw most when he appeared to be quite absorbed. Even an outsider would have been interested in the group gathered in the young doctor's office that summer afternoon. The little mother (she was no taller than her oldest daughter and came only to her tall son's shoulder) sat at one side of the flat-topped desk, leaning her head on one hand as she studied the plans for the addition to the house. She was very lovely and very appealing, from her wavy dark hair faintly streaked with gray to her little buckled slippers, and there was nothing of the invalid about her. It would have been difficult to say, off-hand, just why she should inspire the conviction, immediate and swift, that those who loved her must be constantly on guard to protect her against physical exhaustion and weakness. Difficult, that is, only until one saw her patient, shining eyes and then one knew, what had never been hidden from Doctor Hugh, that in her body dwelt an unquenchable spirit that would always outrun her strength. In Rosemary, leaning above her mother and studying the blue prints so intently that a little frown gathered between her arched brows, the spirit and strength were united. The effect of Rosemary on the most casual beholder, was always one of radiance. The mass of her waving hair was bronze, said her friends; it was red, it was gold, it was all of these. Her eyes were like her mother's, a violet blue, but dancing, drenched in tears or black with storm--seldom patient eyes. She lived intensely, did Rosemary, and sometimes she hurt herself and sometimes she hurt others. She could be obstinate--wanting her own way with the insistence of a driving force; that was the Willis will working in her, Winnie said. All the Willis children had that trait, Winnie said also. Rosemary could be sorry and make frank confession. That, Sarah always thought, was the hardest thing in the world to do.