d have to say. Then I'd get ready right
away and let you know what train to meet me on. And, oh, say--if you'll
wear a pink in your buttonhole I will, too. Then we'll know each other.
My address is just 'Hampden Falls.'

"Your awfully homesick namesake,

"BILLY HENSHAW NEILSON"

For one long minute there was a blank silence about the Henshaw
dinner-table; then the eldest brother, looking anxiously from one man to
the other, stammered:

"W-well?"

"Great Scott!" breathed Bertram.

Cyril said nothing, but his lips were white with their tense pressure
against each other.

There was another pause, and again William broke it anxiously.

"Boys, this isn't helping me out any! What's to be done?"

"'Done'!" flamed Cyril. "Surely, you aren't thinking for a moment of
LETTING that child come here, William!"

Bertram chuckled.

"He WOULD liven things up, Cyril; wouldn't he? Such nice smooth floors
you've got up-stairs to trundle little tin carts across!"

"Tin nonsense!" retorted Cyril. "Don't be silly, Bertram. That letter
wasn't written by a baby. He'd be much more likely to make himself at
home with your paint box, or with some of William's junk."

"Oh, I say," expostulated William, "we'll HAVE to keep him out of those
things, you know."

Cyril pushed back his chair from the table.

"'We'll have to keep him out'! William, you can't be in earnest! You
aren't going to let that boy come here," he cried.

"But what can I do?" faltered the man.

"Do? Say 'no,' of course. As if we wanted a boy to bring up!"

"But I must do something. I--I'm all he's got. He says so."

"Good heavens! Well, send him to boarding-school, then, or to the
penitentiary; anywhere but here!"

"Shucks! Let the kid come," laughed Bertram. "Poor little homesick
devil! What's the use? I'll take him in. How old is he, anyhow?"

William frowned, and mused aloud slowly.

"Why, I don't know. He must be--er--why, boys, he's no child," broke off
the man suddenly. "Walter himself died seventeen or eighteen years ago,
not more than a year or two after he was married. That child must be
somewhere around eighteen years old!"

"And only think how Cyril WAS worrying about those tin carts," laughed
Bertram. "Never mind--eight or eighteen--let him come. If he's that age,
he won't bother much."

"And this--er--'Spunk'; do you take him, too? But probably he doesn't
bother, either," murmured Cyril, with smooth sarcasm.

"Gorry! I forgot Spunk," a