rms now. But there came in through the hall a
pattering of little feet, and by the time Jock and Hurry had burst into
the room I was at a garden window looking out, and Lucy had caught up
from her work bag that Penelope's web of a silk necktie upon which she
so often worked, and made no progress.

"Has Favver come back?"

"Why, no, you little goose. He's gone to Palm Beach. We took him to
the train. He won't be back tomorrow, nor the day after. Nor the day
after that," and she halted only when she had come to about the tenth
tomorrow. "And now make your manners to Mr. Mannering."

In fiction children and dogs have an intuitive aversion for the villain
of the piece. But Jock and Hurry had none for me. Indeed they liked
me very much and looked to me for treats, and rides round the block,
and romping games in which I fled and they pursued. But then it was
only since yesterday that I had become a genuine villain. Had their
intuition made the discovery? I think I was a little anxious.

But they rushed upon me, and we were to remain for the present at
least, so it seemed, the same old friends.

It flashed across my mind that some day in the not far future these
children would live under my roof; surely the courts would award them
to Lucy; and I highly resolved to be a genuine father to them through
thick and thin. Somehow or other they must always be fond of me.
Whatever I had to leave when I died they must share equally with any
children that I might happen to have of my own. Children? I caught
Lucy's eyes. We looked at each other across the tops of those
children's heads, and read each other's thoughts. I know this, because
when Jock and Hurry had been sent away, I said: "Did you know what I
was thinking of just then? I was thinking, wondering, hoping----"

"I couldn't love you," she said quietly, "and not want what you want
and hope what you hope."

"Lucy!"

I touched her hair with the tips of my fingers.

"What, dear?"

"There was never anyone in the world so wonderful as you, so beautiful,
so generous."

"I suppose it's nice to have you think so." She looked with great
contentment at the necktie.

"You haven't told me when Schuyler is coming."

"He's coming tomorrow."

"That's fine. But it will have its funny side."

"Why?"

"Well, I shall have to tell him all about us, won't I? And we were
schoolmates together, and I think telling him I love his sister and
want to marry her and