He should have been able to live comfortably on the income from his land and rents, especially since his wife had presented him with only two children. But the man never accepted the fact that it was his elder brother, less intelligent and with less charm and good looks than he, who had inherited the title and the paternal home. Jonathon Parrish had taken little interest in his property, using it only as a source of income to finance his hunting and his card-playing and his hard drinking.

When he died, his son, Bruce, far different in character from himself, discovered that his father's debts were enormous and that the land had been neglected for years. He already knew that the house furnishings had been allowed to grow shabby and the once-landscaped gardens overgrown. Bruce Parrish had tried, had puzzled over the problems for three years. But finally he had been forced to admit that he would never be able to both pay back his father's debts and spend the money necessary to recover the fortunes of the estate. He was a serious young man whose sense of duty was overdeveloped. If he must make a choice, he would have to choose repaying the debtors, who had already waited far too long. He decided that the house and the land must be leased. Not sold. He could not bear the thought of that-not yet, anyway. He would try what he could do with the lease money and what he could earn.

Bruce Parrish had a sister five years his junior. She had acted as their father's housekeeper and as his own for so long that he took her presence very much for granted. He never considered consulting her on any of the many problems that beset him. This occasion was no exception. He must be gainfully employed; she must come with him and keep his house, even though it was to be a far humbler abode than the one they had always known. She was informed only one week before they were to remove themselves from their childhood home that he was to be employed as a schoolmaster in a town thirty miles distant and that she was to go with him to live in the small brick schoolhouse that adjoined the school.