Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/33

Rh big dynamos; best to keep away from Augusta Morgan. That is the way David had always felt. But he was in trouble now. He glanced up at Augusta and then quickly down again.

"Well," she demanded impatiently. "What do you say? Come, what do you say?"

David shook his head and sighed. "Do as you think best. Do as you think best, Augusta," he said.

Twenty-five years had passed since then, but David, as much as he believed he disliked Augusta, still looked upon her as the force that kept his life from flying apart into fragments and disorder. Not once since the day she had set foot in the house had there been any hired help to cook the food in the kitchen; not once since that day had a specialist from Boston, or from anywhere else, crossed the threshold of 89 Chestnut Street; and only for a brief two days when Reba was born and the town-doctor said he'd drop the case if Augusta wouldn't let him bring a trained nurse, had David been disturbed by the sight of white caps and uniforms.

Reba, too, looked upon Augusta Morgan as the force that had kept her life from flying apart. But, oh, she had wanted her life to fly apart! There was all the difference of youth and age between her and David. She had wanted no cement to bind together the thousand and one elements of her life. Like a seeded dandelion floating away on tiny white wings in a dozen different directions, but for Aunt Augusta, Reba too would have discovered the mysteries over the confining walls. However, she did not think accusingly of her aunt—not for any length of time. It wasn't in her nature. Immersed as her mother and