in a weakened condition twenty miles farther on to the coast, and finally had caught a slow-travelling freight-boat bound for Spain. Blown out of its course, becalmed, disabled by a terrific storm, Oliver never saw the coast of Europe until well into November. His mite of a child was two weeks old before he reached home.
Oliver had done well down there in South America. Reports of his ability had reached the Boston office months before Oliver himself appeared. It seems that Oliver's chief had written a long letter telling all about the ingenuity which young Vars had shown in working out some technical problem connected with a suspension bridge down there. I told you Oliver's line was civil engineering. The Boston office informed Will they had offered Vars a good position right here at home with a salary that he could live on. I was delighted, and as soon as we learned that he had started for God's country, I began to hunt up apartments.
I wanted Oliver to see for himself and by himself what a perfect little housekeeper—what a lovely little creature, simple as she was, he had chanced to pick out up there in the mountains of Vermont. I honestly began to fear Oliver wouldn't appreciate half of the delicate points that Madge had developed. I wished I could give my brother a course of training too. He is the kind to be rather impolite inside the walls of his own domain. I selected for Madge and Oliver a suburb where the rents were not high, about half an hour by trolley from Boston. I planned to have Madge well established in her own five sunny little rooms before the arrival of either her husband
