y lawyer in the morning, and
he'll get the court to appoint me your guardian. Come now! If you cry
about it, I'll think you don't want me for guardian. Do you?"

She turned a blubbered, wistful face toward me from the counterpane. Her
eyes answered me. I leaned over, smoothed a pillow and slipped it
beneath her tired head, then kissed her unbruised cheek and walked
quietly back into my own room--where I rang for Mrs. Parrot.

When she arrived, "Mrs. Parrot," I suggested, "please make Susan
comfortable for the night, will you? And I'll appreciate it if you treat
her exactly as you would my own child."

It took Mrs. Parrot at least a minute to hit upon something she quite
dared to leave with me.

"Very well, Mr. Hunt. Not having an own child, and not knowing--you can
say that. Not that it's the same thing, though you _do_ say it! But I'll
make her comfortable--and time tells. In darker days, I hope you'll be
able to say that poor, peeny little creature has done the same by you."

"Thank you, Mrs. Parrot. Good-night."

"A good night to you, Mr. Hunt," elaborated Mrs. Parrot, not without
malice; "many of them, Mr. Hunt; many of them, I'm sure."

III

By the time Mrs. Parrot left us, housekeeper, governess, and maid had
been obtained in New York through agencies of the highest
respectability.

Miss Goucher, the housekeeper, proved to be a tall, big-framed spinster,
rising fifty; a capable, taciturn woman with a positive talent for
minding her own affairs. She had bleak, light-gray eyes, a rudderlike
nose, and a harsh, positive way of speech that was less disagreeable
than it might have been, because she so seldom spoke at all. Having
hoped for a more amiable presence, I was of two minds over keeping her;
but she took charge of my house so promptly and efficiently, and effaced
herself so thoroughly--a difficult feat for so definite a figure--that
in the end there was nothing I could complain of; and so she stayed.

Miss Disbrow on the other hand, who came as governess, was all that I
had dared to wish for; a graceful, light-footed, soft-voiced girl--she
was not yet thirty--with charming manners, a fluent command of the
purest convent-taught French, a nice touch on the piano, and apparently
some slight acquaintance with the solider branches. Merely to associate
with Miss Disbrow would, I felt, do much for Susan.

I was less certain about Sonia, the maid. I had asked for a middle-aged
English maid. Sonia was Russ