This novel is the story of a broken family, three children, two girls’ and a boy living with their mother in modest circumstances, visited and taken out occasionally by their affluent father. The scorn and disapproval felt by society for such a ménage (especially in those days—the time covered by the story is from the fire and earthquake in San Francisco to the Great War), the great strain on the children's affections and loyalty, the difficult and embarrassing position of the mother are all here. But the thing of which one is most conscious, so that one might almost call it the