Anne nodded. "We live pretty simply," she said, "but we can live. I keep the accounts. I can tell you how much we spend." The colonel had got hold of himself now. "I have twelve hundred a year," he said. "We do very well on that. I don't actually know how, except that Anne is such a good manager. She and Lydia have earned quite a little, dancing, but I always insisted on their keeping that for their own use." Here Jeffrey looked at Anne and found her pinker than she had been. Anne was thinking she rather wished she had not been so free with her offer of accounts. "Dancing," said he. "Yes. You wrote me. Do you like to dance?" He had turned upon Lydia. "Oh, yes," said she. "It's heavenly. Anne doesn't. Except when she's teaching children." "What made you learn dancing?" he asked Anne. "We wanted to do something," she said guiltily. She was afraid her tongue was going to betray her and tell the story of the lean year after their mother died when they found out that mother had lived a life of magnificent deception as to the ease of housekeeping on twelve hundred a year. "Yes," said Jeffrey, "but dancing? Why'd you pick out that?" "We couldn't do anything else," said Lydia impatiently. "Anne and I don't know anything in particular." She thought he might have been clever enough to see that, while too tactful to betray it. "But we look nice--together--and anybody can dance." "Oh!" said Jeffrey. His eyes had a shade less of gravity, but he kept an unmoved seriousness of tone. "About our living with Farvie," said Anne. "I can see you'd want to know." "Yes," said he, "I do." "We love to," said Anne. "We don't know what we should do if Farvie turned us out." "My dear!" from the colonel. "Why, he's our father," said Lydia, in a burst. "He's just as much our father as he is yours." "Good!" said Jeffrey. His voice had warmed perceptibly. "Good for you. That's what I thought." "If you'd rather not settle down here," said his father, in a tone of hoping Jeff would like it very much, "we shall be glad to let the house again and go anywhere you say. We've often talked of it, the girls and I." Jeffrey did not thank them for that, or seem to hear it even. "I want," said he, "to go West." "Well," said Farvie, with a determined cheerfulness, "I guess the girls'll agree to that. Middle West?" "No," said Jeffrey, "the West--if there is any West left. Somewhere where there's space." His voice fell, on that last word. It held wonder even. Was there such a thing, this man of four walls seemed to ask, as space? "You'd want to go alone," said Anne softly. She felt as if she were breaking something to Farvie and adjuring him to bear it. "Yes," said Jeffrey, in relief. "I've got to go alone." "My son--" said the colonel and couldn't go on. Then he did manage. "Aren't we going to live together?" "Not yet," said Jeffrey. "Not yet."