When Robert Blair decided that his son, Bobby, should marry Grace Allison, he neither begged nor threatened. He simply told his son what he wished, and Bobby, who had learned the impossibility of defying his father, consented in order to avoid a hopeless quarrel. But Bobby had weak lungs and before the engagement had been announced, the doctor ordered him away to the mountains. In the mountains he met Joan. In a short time Joan meant more to Bobby than all the rest of the world. So they were married. When Bobby brought his bride back to the city Robert Blair was almost insane with rage. For the first time in his life he had been successfully defied. In the white heat of his anger, be forbade Bobby and his wife ever to speak or write to him again. Bobby obeyed his father implicitly. He died. Joan, left alone with a young baby, was at her wits' end. Dr. .Merrill, her husband's physician, came to her assistance nobly in the attempt to find employment for her, but without much success. Joan would not accept charity and there were few situations open to her which would give her enough money to support herself and the child. Finally, she resolved on a great sacrifice. Placing her child in a basket, she left her on Blair's doorstep, with a little note disclosing the child's identity and telling of her husband's death. It was as impossible for Blair to turn away from his little granddaughter as it would have been to forgive the woman he felt had ruined his son's life. So the little girl was reared in her grandfather's splendid home, while her mother worked as a nurse in a hospital where she had obtained a position through Dr. Merrill's kindness. One day, three years later, the little girl fell ill. The nurse summoned from the hospital was Joan. All unknown to Robert Blair, the mother nursed her child back to health and strength. Taken with the nurse's capable ways he asked her to become the child's governess. Then Joan disclosed herself. All Blair's former rage came over him. He could not forgive her and he would not give up the child. So affairs stood at a deadlock until Dr. Merrill came in and suggested a compromise. Blair should keep the child and he, the doctor, would take Joan. It ended by Robert Blair taking all three.