"We might end it as we did two weeks ago and keep the whole lot of them," she proposed merrily.
"Well—why don't you?" he asked calmly.
"James!"
His face grew red with a shame-faced laugh.
"Well—there are families with five children in them, and I guess we could manage it," he asserted in self-defense.
She sat up and looked at him with amazement.
"Surely we have money enough—and I don't know how we could spend it better," he continued rapidly; "and with plenty of help for you—there 's nothing to hinder turning ourselves into an orphan asylum if we want to," he added triumphantly.
"Oh, James, could we—do you think?" she cried, her eyes shining with a growing joy. "Tommy, and Tilly, and all? Oh, we will—we will! And—and—we'll never have to choose any more, will we, James?" she finished fervently.
The Elephant's Board and Keep
On twelve hundred dollars a year the Wheelers had contrived to live thus far with some comforts and a few luxuries—they had been married two years. Genial, fun-loving, and hospitable, they had even entertained occasionally; but Brainerd was a modest town, and its Four Hundred was not given to lavish display.