"Yesterday some one told me the Kentons were trying to sell their place at the lake. What does it mean? Why are people growing poor?"
"It's the panic," I answered briefly. "Business has been getting worse and worse ever since the Fair. Some think it started with the Fair, but the trouble goes back of that."
She put aside the paper and looked at me seriously.
"Van, what is a panic?"
It seemed strange that she should ask such a question in a simple, childish way. But she had been shut away from people and things of late, and it was not her nature to explore what was not right in her path.
"A panic," I replied, finishing my coffee, "is hell! Now I must run and see what has happened to us."
She looked at me in round-mouthed astonishment, and when I bent over to kiss her good-by, she said reprovingly:
"You don't mean it could touch us, Van?"
"It might," I smiled, thinking of the troubled waters where I was swimming.
"We must trust Providence—"