en in New York all day. I guess he
wanted to buy something for Ina."

"Her ring?" asked Charlotte, in a slightly awed tone.

"Very likely."

"Papa, is Major Arms rich?" asked Charlotte.

"Quite, I think, dear. I don't know how much he has in reality, but
he has his pay from the government--he is on the retired list--and he
owns considerable property. He has enough and to spare, there is no
doubt about that."

"So if Ina has things and people trouble her for payment she can pay
them," remarked Charlotte, thoughtfully.

"Yes," said Carroll, shortly. He quickened his pace, and Charlotte
made a little run to get into step again.

"That will be very nice," said she. "Do you think he will be good to
her, papa?"

"Sure as I am of anything in this world, dear."

"It would be dreadful if he wasn't. Whatever else Ina or any of us
haven't had, we've always had that. We've always lived with folks
that loved us and were good to us. That would kill Ina and me
quickest of anything, papa."

"He will be good to her, dear," said Carroll, pleasantly. He looked
down at Charlotte and laughed. "It's all right, baby," he said.
"She's got one man in a thousand--one worth a thousand of your old
dad."

"No, she hasn't," said Charlotte, with indignation. She caught her
father's arm and clung to it lovingly. "There is nobody in the world
so good as you," said she, with fervor. "I wouldn't leave you for any
man in the world, papa."

"You wait," Carroll said, laughing.

"Papa, you don't wish I were going to be married too? You don't want
me to go away like Ina?" Charlotte demanded, with a sudden grieved
catch in her voice.

"I never want you to go, darling," Carroll replied, and he looked
down with adoration at the little face whose whole meaning seemed one
of innocent love for and belief in him. He realized the same terror
at the mere fancy of losing this artless and unquestioning devotion
as one might feel at the fancy of losing his only prop from the edge
of a precipice. The man really had for an instant a glimpse of a
sheer descent in his own nature which might be ever before his
sickened vision if this one little faith and ignorance were removed.
In a curious fashion a man sometimes holds an innocent love between
himself and himself, and Carroll so held Charlotte's.

"I will never leave you for any other man. I don't care who he is,"
Charlotte reiterated, and this time her father let her assertion go
unchallenged. He press