"Because dear Mardy is worried over present prospects; she lies awake planning, and can't see her way out--she told us so this morning," said Rob, bravely. "She says we must have an extra hundred dollars--and she has no idea where it can come from. We've used up the coal money--you know she divides her poor little pennies into piles for different things--and if we get coal late it will cost more, besides, how can we get it later any better than now? So I never said a word to the rest, but I thought of the article, and I made up my mind I'd get the dear daddy to put a wee bit of his cleverness on paper, and surprise the blessed Lady Grey by giving her her hundred--do you suppose it could be as much as that, Patergrey?" "They offered me a hundred dollars for three thousand words," said her father, adding quickly, as Rob clapped her hands rapturously: "But it will take my mind off the invention, Rob, and I don't want to delay that a day. Something seems to impel me--compel me is better--to finish it as soon as I can, and anything that retards it is a mistake, my dear." "But you are all prepared--you said so, Patergrey--and you are so clever you can do it in a week," coaxed Rob, getting up to kneel beside her father, and crinkling her flexible face into a maze of irresistible puckers, as if he were a little child. Her father laughed. "A week, you silly puss! Three days, at the outside," he said. Rob cried out triumphantly: "Then you can't say no! Only three days! It can't make much difference with the machine, and isn't it worth three days' delay to relieve Mardy darling's mind? Poor Mardy! She's so brave and cheerful, but, oh, she does have to squeeze hard to keep us all fed and housed." To Rob's distress her father dropped his head on his arms, laid over the back of the chair, and groaned. "You're right, Roberta. It makes me sick at heart to think of what it has cost her to be so faithfully, patiently loving with me all these years. Poor, bright, pretty Mary Winslow, who might have shone in any setting! Yes, child, I'll do the article--set about it to-day. I know I make life hard for her, but I do my best. Some day you'll all see, Rob, I did my best." Tears were raining down Roberta's cheeks. "Papa, Patergrey, I know, I know all about it! Why do you say that to me?" she cried. "And Mardy doesn't have a hard time--she'd never forgive me if I let you say that! She loves you so much that it would have been cruel to have given her all the world, without you." "How can you understand that, Roberta?" asked her father, startled by the girl's insight. "Because anyone feels that way when they love someone," replied Rob. "Wouldn't I rather be Roberta Grey, your daughter, than the richest girl in the world with another father? Don't grieve, Patergrey. It's all right for all the Greys, and we'll show all those people who talk and don't know what they're talking about, we'll show them--you and I and the bricquette machine--some day, won't we?"