"It really can. I will take but fifty dollars now, Rob, but I may need more. There must be photographs and plates made, some printing done. I would prefer your money to do this, if the idea pleases you."
For further answer Rob kissed her father as he ceased speaking, and ran away to fetch the money, singing at the top of her voice.
That night were mailed to New York the first letters introducing to a larger world than had yet heard of it the bricquette machine upon which the hopes of the Greys hung, and into which all the energy of Sylvester Grey's apparently unfruitful life had passed.
Wythie, who was always ready for bed long before Rob, sat in the rocking-chair, a shawl over her white gown, watching, with eyes of loving envy, Rob's frantic brushing of her unruly hair.
"I think I shall be wickedly jealous of you," she said at last. "Fancy your launching the invention! I wish I were able to help as you do."
"You, Oswyth! You're not only an Anglo-Saxon saint, but a Connecticut angel," cried Rob, somewhat inarticulately, as she held between her teeth the elastic band with which she intended to fasten her braid. "Without you we would all go—kersmash!—in one day. You do everything."
"Do you remember how, when we reckon our resources, we put down two columns, one certainties, the other possibilities? To think you are now one of the possibilities!" persisted Wythie.
"And if I am, what then?" demanded Rob. "I may be a possibility, but you are an extreme probability, Oswyth, my dear. You are at once a column and a foundation. I'll never be half as useful as you are. Put out the light, Oswyth Grey, and don't talk nonsense! Not but that I'm thankful enough to be added to the column of possible sources of income!"