Free Astra by Grace Livingston Hill Page B

sometimes I tell him about college, and sometimes he likes me to talk about politics.”
    “Nonsense, Charlie,” said the sister. “Father won’t miss you. I doubt if he knows the difference between us half the time. He scarcely looks at me when I go in, and he never opens his lips to speak on any subject.”
    “Nevertheless,” said Charles firmly, “I’m staying with Father as long as possible. Afterward, we will see.”
    “Well, you’d better not put it off too long, brother. This perfectly wonderful girl may not be on the market forever, and if you have her for a friend, you’ll have something worthwhile working for.”
    Charles had smiled.
    “I’m not in a hurry for a girl,” he said. “That will keep. At present, I’m not in a position to waste my time going around with girls. And if I were, there are plenty of girls in our hometown.”
    “Oh mercy! Charlie! You don’t want to get a girl from around here. You are going to rise, you know, and become rich. You’ll want to go to New York, eventually, and get into something big in a money way. There’s more opportunity in a big city. And if you amass a fortune, you will want to find a girl who will know how to preside in a wealthy home and to guide your fortunes. You couldn’t marry a girl from a little country town and hope to rise anywhere.”
    “Couldn’t I?” said Charles with a comical smile. “Then why rise?”
    “Oh Charlie! You’re simply impossible!” said Rosamond.
    Rosamond had been called away to meet a guest, and presently came Janet. Now, Janet was a sweet sister and had married a doctor. She also lived in the city.
    “Charles,” she said, “you know we think a lot of you, and we’d like to have you run in and see us as often as you can. Before they got this bank position for you, I had sort of hoped you’d get something in the city and come and live with us awhile. I know Milan would like to have you. He said once if you didn’t get anything right away he’d offer you a place as office boy. You know he really needs someone to be there, especially evenings when he has to go sometimes. Of course, though, he couldn’t pay much. But you may be glad to know of it sometime, if things don’t work out here.”
    “Perhaps, Janet,” said Charles. “That’s good of you. You know I’d enjoy being with you, if you’d just promise not to fling a lot of girls, or even a special girl, at my head the way Roz did!”
    “Did Roz do that?” laughed Janet. “Well, I promise. But I certainly wouldn’t want you to bring any girl of Roz’s choosing into our family.”
    It was the sister Marietta who came to Charles to complain about the stepmother.
    “Charles, I’ve been worrying a lot about this house and what is going to become of it if anything happens to Father. Can’t you talk to him a little about it? It doesn’t seem as if our mother’s house, the house he built to please her when she was a bride, should go to that interloper!”
    “Marietta, that isn’t a right way to talk. Our stepmother is no interloper. She’s our father’s honorable wife, and she has made a home for him during these years when his children have been away from him and he would have been lonely without her. She’s been a good stepmother to me, too, Marietta. I have no fault to find with her. She has always been kindness itself.”
    “Yes, I suppose you would say that, Charles! You’ve always been a perfect saint the way you put up with her, and it’s been hardest of all on you. But you know perfectly well, Charlie, that kindness is no substitute for love. And besides, any one of us children would have been glad to come home and live and keep house for father if he asked us. John and I would have come, or Harold and Rosamond, or Elizabeth and Reamer and their horde of children. Especially Elizabeth. It would have been a real godsend to her. She hasn’t had any too easy a time, Charlie. And Mary would have come, of course; she and Joe would have