"Poor baby!" said Sidney, the soft tender look stealing into her eyes, the look that all mothers have, and that some single women have, too. "His heart is yours, you need not trouble, but your methods are drastic with him. I own he is a pickle, but I'm afraid I'm to blame for his demolishing your pigsty. I have filled his mind with the necessity of a foundation, and he applies it at once in a practical fashion to the first fresh-made building he sees!" "Oh, I don't mind that so much, but I will not have him choose ease rather than duty." Sidney laughed. "You do amuse me, Monnie, though I own your principles are right; but you make duty a terrible bugbear!" "It's a stern reality with me." "You have the spirit of the old Puritans. You're quite a generation or two behind your time." "I may be behind most of you, but I'm not a Puritan. I wish sometimes I had a little of their faith. I live in a material world, and I'm of a material nature." "And you build on the sand," said Sidney softly; "but, of course, your building is only for this life, so you do not expect it to last." "I expect it to last over my time, and for Chuckles, too. I'm building for him and no other." "And if at any time anything happened to him? Suppose he did not live to grow up?" Monica gripped her arm fiercely. "Don't say such horrible things! His life and mine are bound up in each other. Let us talk of other matters." "No," said Sidney, "this is so interesting; but we won't suppose anything dreadful will happen to Chuckles. You don't really mean, Monnie, that your whole life will be given to providing a prosperous farm for Chuckles? Do you see no other goal ahead?" "None. I want to be a success in the line I have mapped out for myself. I care for nothing else. My epitaph can be: "'She made earth give her its best, And earth demanded her best in return.'" "No, that's heathenish. It isn't worthy of you. Earth is our servant, not our master." "Look at the churchyards." "I see nothing there but worn-out caskets, waiting till their owners come back. Oh, Monnie, look up and believe!" "It's too much trouble." Monica seldom spoke so unreservedly, but Sidney was not shocked. She remembered her daily in her prayers, and believed that she would see differently one day. Then Monica gave herself a little shake. "We have talked enough of my concerns. Tell me yours. Something is troubling you. What is it?" "It seems such a mare's nest," said Sidney. "It's undefined trouble in the future, and, yet I don't know, I have something definite to worry me. You are so safe that I will tell you." And Sidney told her friend of what her father had said to her that afternoon. Monica's face grew grave as she listened.