“I wish I could do more, myself, Luke,” he said remorsefully, when his daughter brought him down to the mill for the first time, gray of face and slow of foot. “But I’m a poor stick these days and that’s the Lord’s truth! And I miss old Ben, somehow ... the old fellow was as much a part of the Altonia as the walls and ceilings....” Weak tears filled his eyes. “Old fool--” he muttered, impatiently. “Think of old Ben sitting out there under an orange tree, watching the well gush oil, and we need him so here!” “We’re getting along all right, sir,” his lieutenant assured him. “You don’t see things neglected, do you?” “No, no! I should say not! Never saw things kept up better in all the years-- It isn’t that, Luke; you know it isn’t. I just don’t want you to kill yourself, boy, that’s all!” Nancy Carey was sitting on the arm of her father’s old office chair, one plump, pale hand on his white head. “And _I_ don’t want to have you kill yourself,” she added softly. “Of course you don’t!” The old gentleman beamed, putting his arm about her. “Don’t want to see your old Daddy’s one and only right-hand man killed off, so _he’ll_ have to work himself to death, do you? No, of course you don’t!” The light died out of his face and he sighed. “Well, I’ll be getting along home, Lady-bird! Old Doc’s right ... a little goes a long way with me now. But next week, Luke, I reckon I’ll be back on the job!” The next week found him only slightly stronger, however, and Nancy, tyrannizing prettily over him, brought him down for only an hour a day, and presently his physician ordered him into the Canadian Rockies for two months. Glen, who had secretly hoped that Luke’s promotion would mean an upward step for her as well, kept her disappointment to herself. Of course, it didn’t matter, really; she wanted to be wherever she could help Luke most, but there would have been great pride and satisfaction in keeping the books of the Altonia. She knew she could do it acceptably; she had taken high marks in bookkeeping at business college. It hurt a little, to have Luke doubt her ability, although he put it very pleasantly. “I want to keep the reins in my own hands, Glen. If you’ll just keep on with the correspondence and the files, and the thousand and one things I depend on you for--that’ll be the greatest help in the world!” Luke had been a little difficult, at first, when she had explained the way in which she cared for him, with its prohibitions and limitations; she had been rather frightened, for a moment, but almost instantly he had himself in hand again. She supposed it _was_ disappointing, if you were a demonstrative sort of person, to find some one you cared for was not demonstrative, although it couldn’t, she felt sure, be as uncomfortable as the other way about! Luke had a theory which she had no means of weighing and judging, that, directly they were married, she would get over her foolish notions. Girls, he stated sapiently, often had ideas like that.