s throat, and spoke huskily and slowly--"but she brought
comfort to me. There was something in life for me again--besides my
work. My work I always had. I thanked God for that. I need not tell you,
John, how this little girl crept into my heart, nor how her small
fingers smoothed away the wrinkles from my gloomy old face." Sir Peter
looked up at her and pressed the hand he held. "And so the years rolled
on--and she grew, and grew, and grew, until she became a young woman.
A--a passably good-looking young woman--eh, John? Wouldn't you say
so--passably good-looking?"

John smiled.

"I might say so to you, sir--privately," he admitted.

"And when she was certain of her conquest of me," continued Sir Peter,
"she looked about, as it were, for other worlds to conquer. And along
came a--er--h'm--along came a young prince. Precisely so--along came a
young prince upon whom the fairies had bestowed marvelous gifts." Sir
Peter fairly chuckled as he completed this unusual imaginative flight.
"Marvelous gifts," he repeated. "Eh, Phyllis? Would you say he had
marvelous gifts?"

"If we were quite alone, Uncle Peter, I might say so," confessed
Phyllis.

"And this passably good-looking young woman and this prince of the
marvelous gifts proceeded to fall in love with each other in the most
natural way in the world," Sir Peter went on. "Precisely so. In the most
natural way in the world; as any one but a grumpy old fellow would have
foreseen they would. And having fallen in love with each other, what in
the world was there for them to do but to be married at once--eh? And
yet, will you believe it?--there was a grumpy old fellow who wished to
prevent it. Now, what could you say to an old fellow as grumpy as that?"
Sir Peter adjusted his eyeglass and looked first at John, and then at
Phyllis, quizzically.

"I should say no one could blame him," said John promptly.

"I shouldn't say anything. I should just hug him," said Phyllis, and
carried out the threat with spirit.

"And now we come to the point of this long story," resumed Sir Peter,
readjusting his eyeglass, which had fallen during Phyllis's
demonstration, "These two having married have no other duty before them
than to--er--eh? Of course. Precisely! No other duty than to live
happily ever afterward--eh? As they always do in stories. But the
question is--where? Precisely! Where shall they live happily ever
afterward? Shall they live all by themselves? Or shall they share thei