feeling she
was going to get what she wanted.

"We have thought it advisable not to separate the two children," he
continued in a soothing voice. "They have been through various
vicissitudes together and a separation would hardly be right. There is
his sister over there on the bench with the little child in her lap.
Polly is a nice child, helpful and motherly and extremely intelligent."

"But her hair doesn't curl," objected the lady. "I would never adopt a
girl whose hair doesn't curl. She would be a nuisance instead of a
pleasure."

"Ah really!" from Dr. Weston.

The children were still unconscious of their audience. Peter was
widening the tunnel at one end and at the other the eager babies were
crowding together, peering through at the youthful civil engineer.

"Ith He in there?" queried one.

"Cose He's in here," announced Peter. "He's everywhere in the world--
but He won't git you. He'll just be good to you an' love you an' maybe
give you candy, 'cept'n I'd rather have pancakes."

"He shall have them!" cried the eager lady. "He shall have all he
wants! Little boy," she asked, impulsively leaning over Peter, who had
seated himself in the sand the better to proceed with his excavating,
"dear little boy, wouldn't you like to come and live with me and be my
little boy?"

Peter looked up startled and distressed. Polly dropped the child with
the bumped knee and flew to Peter's side.

"I'll be so good to you and love you as though I were your own mother.
You can have a pony to ride and a bicycle and skates--"

"Gee whilikins!" exclaimed Peter.

"I will adopt you--"

"'Dopt me! No you won't! I didn't know you meant to 'dopt me. Me'n
Polly ain't ever gonter git 'dopted. We's gonter jes' live along here
till we gits growed up an' maybe our mother won't be dead an' will come
find us. Me'n Polly has to be together all the time," an expression of
agony on his face. "Don't we, Polly?"

"Yes, yes, Peter darling!"

"Well you would hardly stand in your brother's light," spoke the lady a
bit sharply. "It would certainly be to his advantage to come and live
with me and my husband. He would take our name and be brought up
exactly as though he were our own."

"But his own name is a good name," spoke Polly, holding her cropped
head proudly. "Peter Waller is a very fine name. I have heard my mother
say so often."

"Oh, you have! Well it is no better than Peter Thraves would be. My
name is Mrs. Thraves, child."

Th