as the 'three wise men of Gotham' who launched forth in a tub. We needed
a better craft and a pilot, and we needed them badly, I tell you, and at
that time we hadn't sighted either. Then the 'Sky Pilot' took the job
out of our hands and He's got it yet, I reckon. At any rate, indications
seem to point that way, for on my way down here He ran me alongside my
navigator and it didn't take her long to give me my bearings. She got
on board the limited at Newark, N. J., and we rode as far as Philly
together. She had three of her convoys along and they're all to the
good, let me tell you."

"Oh, Daddy, did you really meet Mrs. Harold and Polly, and who was with
them?" broke in Peggy eagerly.

"I surely did, little girl; Mrs. Harold, Polly, Ralph and Durand. She
was on her way for a week's visit with some relatives just out of
Philly--in Devon, I believe, a sort of house-party, she's
chaperoning--and a whole bunch of the old friends are to be there. Well,
I got the 'Little Mother' all to myself from Newark to Philly and we
went a twenty-knot clip, I tell you, for big as I am, I was just
bursting to unload my worries upon someone, and that little woman seems
born to carry the major portion of all creation's. She gets them, any
way, and they don't seem to feaze her a particle. She bobs up serene and
smiling after ever comber. But I've yet to see the proposition she
wouldn't try to tackle. Oh, we talked for fair, let me tell you, and in
those two hours she put more ideas into this wooden old block of mine
than it's held in as many months. Did your ears burn this afternoon,
Peggy? You are pretty solid in _that_ direction, little girl, and you'll
never have a better friend in all your born days, and don't you ever
forget _that_ fact. Well, the upshot is, that next Friday, one week from
today, Middie's Haven will have its tenant back and, meantime, she is to
write some letters and lay a train for _your_ welfare, honey. That
school plan is an excellent plan, Katherine, but not a New York school:
New York is too far away from home _and_ Mrs. Harold. Peggy will go to
Washington this winter. Hampton Roads is not far from Washington and
the ---- will put in there a number of times this winter. That gives _me_
a chance to visit my girl oftener and also gives Peggy a chance to visit
Mrs. Harold, and run out here now and again if she wishes, though the
place will be practically closed up for the winter. It was very good of
you to offer to r