of it!" she returned hurriedly. "Your father's
been busy likely, an' so have you; an' anyhow, men ain't much on
follerin' up their relations, or writin' to 'em. So don't say another
word about it. I'm sure I've hardly given it a thought."

That the final assertion was false Robert Morton read in the woman's
brave attempt to control the pitiful little quiver of her lips;
nevertheless he blessed her for her deception.

"You're a dear, Aunt Tiny," he exclaimed heartily, stooping to kiss her
cheek. "Had I dreamed half how nice you were, wild horses couldn't
have kept me away from Wilton."

Celestina blushed with pleasure.

Very pretty she looked standing there in the window, her shoulders
encircled by the arm of the big fellow who, towering above her, looked
down into her eyes so affectionately. Willie couldn't but think as he
saw her what a mother she would have made for some boy. Possibly
something of the same regret crossed Celestina's own mind, for a shadow
momentarily clouded her brow, and to banish it she repeated with
resolute gaiety:

"Do go straight out an' bring in that suit case, Bob, or some straggler
may steal it. An' put out of your mind any notion of goin' to Boston
for the present. I'll show you which room you're to have so'st you can
unpack your things, an' while you're washin' up I'll get you some
breakfast. You ain't had none, have you?"

"No; but really, Aunt Tiny, I'm not--"

"Yes, you are. Don't think it's any trouble for it ain't--not a mite."

Willie beamed with good will.

"You've landed just in time to set down with us," he remarked. "We
ain't had our breakfast, either."

Celestina wheeled about with astonishment. Willie's hospitality must
have burst all bounds if it had lured him, who never deviated from the
truth, into uttering a falsehood monstrous as this. One glance,
however, at his placid face, his unflinching eye, convinced her that
swept away by the interest of the moment the little old man had lost
all memory of whether he had breakfasted or not.

She did not enlighten him.

"Mebbe it ain't honest to let him go on thinkin' he's had nothin' to
eat," she whispered to herself, "but if all them muffins, an' oatmeal,
an' coffee don't do nothin' toward remindin' him he's et once, I ain't
goin' to do it. This second meal will make up fur the breakfast he
missed yesterday. I ain't deceivin' him; I'm simply squarin' things
up."

CHAPTER IV

THE GREEN-EYED MO