acquainted with
her habits. Nancy was relieved to hear her key in the lock again, and
put down her work to greet her.

The door opened and Sheila stood on the threshold. Hitty was close
behind her, but Nancy had eyes only for the child.

"Don't cry, Miss Dear," Sheila said, in her arms. "I cried hard every
night when I was gone from you, but now I have come back. My father
does not want me, and he says that you can have me."

"He signed a paper," Hitty said. "I've got it in my bag with my specs.
If ever he shows his face around here we can have the law on him."

"Can I really have Sheila?" Nancy cried. "I can't believe that--her
father would let her go. I can't understand it."

"He's a kind of a poor soul," Hitty said. "He ain't got no real
contrivance. He's glad enough to get rid of her."

"Did he say so?"

"Well, nearabout. He has a high-falutin way of talking but that was
the amount of it. He knows which side his bread is buttered. He ain't
nobody's fool. I'll say that for him."

"I can't say that you make him out a very pleasant character," Nancy
said. "But he's an artist, Hitty. Artists don't react to the same set
of laws that we do. They're different somehow."

"They ain't so different, when it comes to that," Hitty said dryly.
"They won't take a hint, but the harder you kick 'em the better for
all concerned. Don't you go sticking up for that low-down loon. He
ain't worth it."

"I suppose he isn't," Nancy said; "he's a pretty poor apology for a
man as we understand men, Hitty, but there's something about him,--a
power and a charm that you can't altogether discount, even though you
have lost every particle of your respect for him."

"He has a kind of way," Hitty conceded, "but I ain't one o' them kind
o' women that hankers much for the society of a man that's once shown
himself to be more of a sneak than the average."

"I don't think that I am, either," Nancy said gravely.

"I want to be your little girl always," Sheila announced, "if I may
talk now, may I? And Monsieur Dick's, too, and sit on a cushion and
sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream. I want
to see Monsieur Dick. Where is he?"

"He's been sick," Nancy said, "but he's getting better now, I think. I
haven't seen him for some time, myself."

"Don't you love him very much and aren't you very sorry?"

"He probably isn't very sick," Nancy said. "I don't think he could
be--but if he were I should be sorry, of course."