She planned with him, steadily: she would leave school and go to business college at once, and fit herself for a job as expeditiously as possible, so as not to draw upon her tiny capital any more than was absolutely necessary. The house, he insisted, she must keep; it would not bring enough to make its sale worth while, and it was a shelter; he didn’t want her knocking round in boarding places. He thought she might rent some of the rooms to school-teachers or decent women of some sort; he didn’t want her there alone, of course. Glen opened her mouth to say that she would try to coax Miss Ada from her solitary little room, but stopped herself in time; it would only have irritated him. “Yes, Dad; I can get some one, surely, and I will. I promise you I won’t stay alone. You mustn’t worry, Dad!” He told her, clumsily, since praise came unhandily to his lips, what she had meant to him, and his earnest hope that she would be true to the creeds and convictions he had set up for her. Jerkily, pausing often to rest and husband his fast-failing strength, he renewed for her the standards he had given her in her childhood, particularly on the day of the ill-starred valentine party, when she had gone to drive with him after that tragic festivity. She was to remember always that she was as good as any, and better than most; she was to be the champion of the weak--as represented by the mountaineers and the mill people--and she was to pick her friends from among them; she was to “hate’n despise” The Hill contingent, and to “spike their guns by snubbing them before they got the chance to snub her.” And on the last day of all, gruffly and ineptly, he approached the subject nearest his heart. “Look here, Glen,” he began, “about Luke....” “Yes, Dad,” she met his eyes steadily. “You and Luke ...” he managed between battled breaths, “I’m not fool enough, no, nor knave enough, to pull the ‘dying father’s wish’ on you, but----” The girl wedged another pillow behind his heaving shoulders. “I know, Dad.” The infrequent color had surged up in her golden-olive cheeks, but beyond that single manifestation she was entirely calm. “You’re only seventeen ... child, still.... Wait till you’re nineteen--twenty-- No foolishness in meantime, hear me?” “Yes, Dad.” “No hand-holding ... mooning ’round....” “No, Dad,” she promised earnestly and without embarrassment. “Well, now, remember ... haven’t made any deathbed promise.... I’m not expecting ... run things ... from the grave.” “I know,” she soothed him, wiping the sweat from his glistening forehead. “I understand, Dad, dear. _Please_ don’t try----” But he went doggedly on. “You’re free ... free as air ... but if you _do_-- Well, if there’s anything to this ‘hereafter’ stuff ... if I’m--anywhere--you’ll know I’m--_glad_!” He scowled at the nurse, bringing his nourishment, and sent Glen out for a breath of air.