help of his lantern, and then, going into the
comfortable kitchen, he found the lunch the housekeeper had left for
him. He thought of the many merry meals he and Kate had had on this
same kitchen table, but now it seemed a poor, cold thing to sit down
and eat alone and in silence.

With his customary thoughtfulness he cleared away the lunch before
going to his room. Then, lamp in hand, he went, as he and Kate had
always done, to the children's room, and looked long and lovingly at
his boy and girl asleep in their cots--the boy so like himself, with
his broad forehead and brown curls. He bent over him and kissed him
tenderly--Kate's boy.

Then he turned to the little girl, so like her mother, with her tangle
of red curls on the pillow. Picking her up in his arms, he carried her
to his room and put her in his own bed.

"Mother isn't putting up a bluff on us, is she, dearie?" he whispered
as he kissed the soft little cheek beside his own. "Mother loves us,
surely--it is pretty rough on us if she doesn't--and it's rougher
still on mother!"

The child stirred in her sleep, and her arms tightened around his neck.

"I love my mother--and my dear daddy," she murmured drowsily.

All night long Jim Dawson lay wide-eyed, staring into the darkness with
his little sleeping girl in his arms, not doubting his wife for a
moment, but wondering--all night long--wondering!

The next evening Jim did not go for his mail, but one of the neighbors
driving by volunteered to get it for him.

It was nearly midnight when the sound of wheels roused him from his
reverie. He opened the door, and in the square of light the horses
stopped.

"Hello, Jim--is that you?" called the neighbor; "I've got something for
you."

Jim came out bareheaded. He tried to thank the neighbor for his
kindness, but his throat was dry with suppressed excitement--Kate had
written!

The buggy was still in the shadow, and he could not see its occupant.

"I have a letter for you, Jim," said his friend, with a suspicious
twinkle in his voice, "a big one, registered and special delivery--a
right nice letter, I should say."

Then her voice rang out in the darkness.

"Come, Jim, and help me out."

Commonplace words, too, but to Jim Dawson they were sweeter than the
chiming of silver bells.....

An hour later they still sat over their late supper on the kitchen
table. She had told him many things.

"I just got lonely, Jim--plain, straight homesick for you an