Emily put the child to bed and then went down into the library to join her father, who sat with his book in the mellow circle of the reading lamp. She entered the room softly from the habit that had grown upon her in the hours when the baby might be wakened, and she sank into a chair and folded her hands with a sigh. Her father slowly glanced at her tired, thin face, but did not move his head. He seemed to be reading on, but presently he said, still without moving: "Tired?" Emily lifted her head from the back of the chair on which she had been resting it, fastened a lock of her hair, smiled and said: "Oh, no." "You let that young John E., or whatever his name is, wear you out," her father insisted, taking his glasses from his nose and marking his place in his book after his old custom. "Poor child!" the mother said. "He's not well. I dread the summer so." "He seems fretful," said the father, with a shade of his original resentment lingering in his tone. "Oh, it's not that, father," Emily replied. "He's so active and full of energy. Mother Garwood says Jerome was just so when he was a baby." "Been over there?" "Yes, I ran over to-day to ask her some things about baby. She knows all about them." "Well, you ought to have a nurse," he said. "We can't afford it," the mother replied. "Can't afford it! He gets enough!" "I know it, but it's so expensive living, as Jerome must, at a hotel in Washington. And he's in debt, with another campaign coming on. That'll cost, you know." The old man raised himself in his chair. "It seems to me," he said, "that with five thousand a year, he might--" The daughter also raised herself in her chair and her dull eyes caught back some of their old brightness. "You know, father, that Jerome does the best he can--"