“O yes. You have a right--a legal right--if that's what you base your idea of a child's duty on! And while you're talking of rights--how about a parent's rights? How about common gratitude! How about what you owe to me--for all the care and pains and cost it's been to bring you up. A child's a rather expensive investment these days.” Diantha flushed, she had expected this, and yet it struck her like a blow. It was not the first time she had heard it--this claim of filial obligation. “I have considered that position, Father. I know you feel that way--you've often made me feel it. So I've been at some pains to work it out--on a money basis. Here is an account--as full as I could make it.” She handed him a paper covered with neat figures. The totals read as follows: Miss Diantha Bell, To Mr. Henderson R. Bell, Dr. To medical and dental expenses... $110.00 To school expenses... $76.00 To clothing, in full... $1,130.00 To board and lodging at $3.00 a week... $2,184.00 To incidentals... $100.00 -------- $3.600.00 He studied the various items carefully, stroking his beard, half in anger, half in unavoidable amusement. Perhaps there was a tender feeling too, as he remembered that doctor's bill--the first he ever paid, with the other, when she had scarlet fever; and saw the exact price of the high chair which had served all three of the children, but of which she magnanimously shouldered the whole expense. The clothing total was so large that it made him whistle--he knew he had never spent $1,130.00 on one girl's clothes. But the items explained it. Materials, three years at an average of $10 a year... $30.00 Five years averaging $20 each year... $100.00 Five years averaging $30 each year... $50.00 Five years averaging $50 each year... $250.00 ------- $530.00 The rest was “Mother's labor”, averaging twenty full days a year at $2 a day, $40 a year. For fifteen years, $600.00. Mother's labor--on one child's, clothes--footing up to $600.00. It looked strange to see cash value attached to that unfailing source of family comfort and advantage. The school expenses puzzled him a bit, for she had only gone to public schools; but she was counting books and slates and even pencils--it brought up evenings long passed by, the sewing wife, the studying children, the “Say, Father, I've got to have a new slate--mine's broke!” “Broken, Dina,” her Mother would gently correct, while he demanded, “How did you break it?” and scolded her for her careless tomboy ways. Slates--three, $1.50--they were all down. And slates didn't cost so much come to think of it, even the red-edged ones, wound with black, that she always wanted. Board and lodging was put low, at $3.00 per week, but the items had a footnote as to house-rent in the country, and food raised on the farm. Yes, he guessed that was a full rate for the plain food and bare little bedroom they always had.