"Are you ready, daughter?" he called up the stairway.
"Just a minute or two, Daddy," replied Janice.
She felt that they were in trouble again. All she had tried to do to keep him from knowing just how badly things about the house were going had been for naught.
But she winked back the tears and "practised a smile" in her looking glass before she ran down to join daddy on the porch. There was a big touring car out in front. Janice knew it belonged to the vice-president of the Farmers ad Merchants Bank.
"Oh, what a fine car, Daddy!" she whispered, clinging to his hand. "Let's play it is ours—while we are in it, of course."
"Would you like to have a car my dear?" he asked her, as they settled themselves in the tonneau, and the driver started the machine.
"Oh!" she cried. "I could just jump out of my skin when I think of it! Every time I ride with Stella
Latham I'm just as covetous as I can be. I guess I am real wicked, Daddy."
"I shouldn't be surprised," he returned, smiling. "It would be nice to have all the comforts and the luxuries of the rich—without their troubles."
"M-mm!" said Janice. "But even their troubles can't be so bad.
Not as bad as poor people's troubles."