At the end of a week the only open question was that of Eunice's residence. Roy had engaged a house in Hamilton, and was urgent in his desire that she should live with Jessie and himself. The conscientious elder sister hesitated in the knowledge that her income would not support her in like comfort anywhere else.
"My inclination leads-me to follow Jessie," she confessed to her brother-in-law. "My sense of duty to myself and to you makes me doubt the propriety and justice of living in comparative idleness, when, if I had not the shelter of your roof, I must work to eke out a maintenance."
Which quibble Roy pronounced absurd and far-fetched.
"Quite unworthy of sensible Eunice! To say nothing of the manifest unkindness to our poor girl here," he said, as his wife entered the room where he was sitting. "Come here, Love, and convince this unreasonable and sceptical woman that she is indispensable to our happiness."
Jessie yielded passively to the arm that drew her to his knee.
"What is it?" she asked, listlessly.
Roy gave an abstract of the situation.
She looked confused—uncertain whether she had heard him aright. It was an effort to understand anything, sometimes. Roy and Eunice glanced from her to one another. They saw that dazed look, heard her stammer oftener than either liked; dreaded nothing else so much as they did the repetition of the scenes attending their father's demise and burial.
"Of course she will live with me—with us, wherever we go!" she rejoined. "Unless you object"—to Roy. "But I was under the impression that you wished it,—that the matter was definitely arranged."
"It is, now!" said Roy confidently, and Eunice did not dispute it.