f her frivolity, had somehow managed the
children far better than Maud was now able to do. At the present time,
so Mr. Tapster admitted to himself with something very like an inward
groan, his two sons possessed every vice of which masculine infancy is
capable. They had become, so he was told by their indignant nurses, the
terror of the well-behaved children who shared with them the pleasures
of the Park Inclosure, where they took their daily exercise; and Baby,
once so sweet and good, was now very fretful and peevish.

* * * * *

Again the train of Mr. Tapster's mournful thoughts was disturbed by a
curious little sound--that of some one creeping softly down the
staircase leading from the upper floors. Once more he half rose from his
chair, only to fall heavily back again, with a look of impotent
annoyance on his round, whiskered face. Where was the use of his going
out into the hall and catching Nurse on her way to the kitchen? Maud had
declared, very early in the day, that there should be as little
communication as possible between the kitchen and the nursery, but Mr.
Tapster sometimes found himself in secret sympathy with the two women
whose disagreeable duty it was to be always with his three turbulent
children.

Mr. Tapster frowned and stared gloomily into the fire; then he suddenly
pulled himself together rather sharply, for the door behind him had
slowly swung open. This was intolerable! The parlor-maid had again and
again been told that, whatever might have been the case in her former
places, no door in Mr. Tapster's house was to be opened without the
preliminary of a respectful knock.

Fortified by the memory of what had been a positive order, he turned
round, nerving himself to deliver the necessary rebuke. But instead of
the shifty-eyed, impudent-looking woman he had thought to see, there
stood close to him, so close that he could almost have touched her,
Flossy, his wife, or rather the woman who, though no longer his wife,
had still, as he had been informed to his discomfiture, the right to
bear his name.

A very strange feeling, and one so complicated that it sat uneasily upon
him, took instant possession of Mr. Tapster: anger, surprise, and relief
warred with one another in his heart.

Then he began to think that his eyes must be playing him some curious
trick, for the figure at which he was staring remained strangely still
and motionless. Was it possible that his mind