found out that he was fearfully badly hit by some wheat speculations he had got into, which did well at first and then let him in for thousands. He had mortgaged the ranch up to the last fence rail, and though it all went to Rob, there was fearfully little money for him to carry on with. Well, of course, after uncle's death everything was different. I didn't see much of the boys at this time. Rob decided to sell the ranch. Mother moved to a sister of hers in Toronto, where I was studying, and after college I got a post in the High School there. Finally Rob put the money from the ranch into the Silk Mills at Toronto and came on there as their manager. He did well, too, and was quite one of Toronto's smart young men. Then came the war.” She paused for a minute or two. “Jack enlisted in the Princess Pats. and went out with the first draft; he was frightfully injured at Vimy trying to get his officer back from between the lines. He was in hospital in France for months and then was invalided out, but he stayed on in France till the armistice, giving engineering courses in the Y.M.C.A., I believe.” “And Mr. Robert Erskine?” “Rob didn't go out. The factory was turned into surgical supplies, and he thought he could do as good work there as in Europe. Besides, he had lost his heart to a girl who was practically German, a Miss Heilbronner. That was how he originally got his chance as manager of the Silk Mills. Old man Heilbronner was the head of the American syndicate which owned the Toronto factory and mills.” “Was Mr. Erskine engaged to Miss Heilbronner?” “For a time, just before and at the beginning of the war, I think he was—sort of on probation, if he could keep on making good. I saw her once or twice out motoring with Rob, and she didn't look the kind to do life on the cheap. Then something happened—I don't know what—which seemed to come between Rob and the Heilbronners. You see,” she turned to the other, “mother and aunt and I didn't belong in the least to Rob's real people. I mean—well, of course, I called Uncle Ian ‘uncle,’ but we were just plain farmer folk same as Jack Carter. The Erskines were quite different, and though Rob never changed an iota himself, his circle and mine didn't mix. Well, Mattie Heilbronner got engaged to another man, and old man Heilbronner was out to get Rob's scalp, so I heard people say; and certainly the factory, which had done so splendidly up till then, didn't seem to do so well after the trouble, whatever it was. But Rob kept his end up till after the armistice, when it was turned back into silk weaving again. Then Jack came back from Europe, and he insisted on coming in to help Rob. Wouldn't take a cent except out of profits, and they thought they were going to pull through in spite of Heilbronner's millions against them. But things went from bad to worse. They were just being squeezed out, so folks that knew said, and—” She came to a dead stop.