Everything looked the same as when Will had left the home. It was true that Alma was left penniless, but it was comparatively easy for George to disguise the fact, and not until very lately did Alma learn that he was supporting the home with its accustomed luxury. With the knowledge came a feeling of intense shame. She had been so thoughtless, leaving every business detail to George, and shutting herself up to her own grief. The last few days had been full of troubled thought. How could she do anything at all to become independent, and yet bring Harold up in the right atmosphere? There seemed no answer to this at all. She never realized how perfectly helpless she was until now. Brought suddenly face to face with real living, she found herself without a resource. She wept tears over it, but that did not solve the problem. She had determined tonight to talk to him about it, and beg him to show her some way to help herself. When George addressed Harold, she looked up in silent surprise. Just when she was about to carry out her resolves, he was proposing new obligations, which her boy was only too eager to accept. "Dandy!" exclaimed Harold, with boyish enthusiasm. "You're a brick, cousin George. Ain't he Mus?" Alma laughed confusedly. "If a brick means someone wonderfully good and kind, then he certainly is," she replied, looking smilingly from one to the other. "But what would poor Mus do with her dear boy away?" "I'll write heaps of letters, and then you have Cousin George, you know," he returned confidently, "I'll never be a man, Mus, if I don't go into the world a bit," he added with the gravity of ten years. George and Alma laughed. "Well, my boy, a man we must make of you, so I guess we'll have to win Mus's consent, and persuade her to let me take good care of you." Alma's blush made her look like her old self. Her pretty natural pink and white attractiveness had never returned since Will's death. More and more she dwelt upon his memory, and only her devotion to Harold kept her from absolute retreat. Edith Esterbrook brought her great comfort, and the girl's choicest thoughts found fruitage in Alma's receptive nature. But nothing had stifled Alma' remorse and useless longing to live again her life with Will. Supper over, Harold went to George and climbed up on his knee. "Tell me all about the soldier place," he said coaxingly with wide expectant eyes. George stroked the dark curly head, and for half an hour explained the life and doings of the academy. Not once did he look toward Alma, who was regarding them intently. Restlessly she was thinking of similar evenings when Will had held their darling boy, and built all kinds of aircastles for his future career. George grew animated, as he gazed into the boy's excited face. His strong affection for the child was reciprocated. Harold knew no time in his short life, when Cousin Walter was not a shining light to guide his boyish ambitions. Finally the recital was over.