ia; don't be late for tea." She
sailed down the stairs.

Even the bang of the hall door failed to convey any relief to Cecilia.
For the second time she toiled upstairs, to the bare freshness of her
little room. Generally, it had a tonic effect upon her; to-day it seemed
that nothing could help her. She leaned her head against the window,
a wave of homesick loneliness flooding all her soul. So deep were its
waters that she did not hear the hall door open and close again, and
presently swift feet pounding up the stairs. Someone battered on her
door.

"Cecilia! Are you there?"

She ran to open the door. Bob stood there, a short, muscular fellow, in
Air Force blue, with twinkling eyes. She put out her hands to him with a
little pitiful gesture.

"Don't say that horrible name again," she whispered. "If anyone else
calls me Cecilia I'll just go mad."

Bob came in, and flung a brotherly arm round her shoulders.

"Has it been so beastly?" he said. "Poor little Tommy. Oh, Tommy, I saw
the over-ornamented pie sailing down the street, and I dived into a side
alley until she'd gone out of range. I guessed from her proud and happy
face that you'd been scarified."

"Scarified!" murmured Cecilia. But Bob was not listening. His face was
radiant.

"I couldn't wait in the park any longer," he said. "I had to come and
tell you. Tommy, old thing--I'm demobilized!"

CHAPTER II

THE RAINHAMS

It was one of Mrs. Mark Rainham's grievances that, comparatively late
in her married life, she should suddenly find herself brought into
association with the children of her husband's first marriage. They were
problems that Fate had previously removed from her path; she found it
extremely annoying--at first--that Fate should cease to be so tactful,
casting upon her a burden long borne by other shoulders. It was not
until she had accepted Mark Rainham, eleven years before, that she found
out the very existence of Bob and Cecilia; she resented the manner of
the discovery, even as she resented the children themselves. Not that
she ever dreamed of breaking off her engagement on their account. She
was a milliner in a Kensington shop, and to marry Mark Rainham, who
was vaguely "something in the city," and belonged to a good club, and
dressed well, was a distinct step in the social scale, and two unknown
children were not going to make her draw back. But to mother them was
quite another question.

Luckily, Fate had a compassionate eye up