"What kind of a girl is this you've married, Andy?" he asked, with a
smile and a look from one to the other. The three were alone, Mrs.
Peyton and her children having gone out to some sort of entertainment.
"Just what she seems to be," replied Doctor Churchill, smiling back,
"and a thousand times more."
"I might have known you would care for no other," Lee said. "And you two
'live in your house at the side of the road, to be good friends to
man,'--if I may adapt those homely words."
"We haven't been at it very long, but we hope to realize an ambition of
the sort. It doesn't take much philanthropy to welcome you."
"You can't think what a relief it is to me to get that little sister of
mine under your wing, even for a few hours."
"Tell us all about her."
Lee had not meant to begin at once upon his troubles, but his friend
drew him on, and before the evening ended the doctor and Charlotte had
the whole long, hard story of Lee's guardianship of several young
brothers and sisters, his struggle to get established in his profession
and make money for their support, his many anxieties in the process, and
this culminating trouble in the breakdown of the younger sister, just as
he thought he had her safely established in a school where she might
have a happy home for several years.
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