tsider.' _I!_ his mother! But if he knew there was a reason--"

Doctor Lavendar looked out of the window into the yellowing leaves of
the old jargonelle-pear tree, and shook his head. "Hearts don't come
when Reason whistles to 'em," he said.

"Oh, if I could just hear him say 'mother'!"

"Why should he say 'mother'? You haven't been a mother to him."

"I've given him everything!"

Doctor Lavendar was silent.

"He _ought_ to come to us. He is ours; and he owes us--"

"Just what you've earned, Mary, just what you've earned. That's what
children 'owe' their parents."

"Oh, what am I to do? What am I to do?"

"How much do you want him, Mary?"

[Illustration: "HEARTS DON'T ANSWER WHEN REASON WHISTLES TO THEM," HE
SAID.]

She was stammering with sobs. "It's all I want--it's my life--"

"_Perhaps_ publicity would win him. He has a great respect for courage.
So perhaps--"

She cringed. "But that couldn't be! It couldn't be. Don't you
understand?"

"Poor Mary!" said Doctor Lavendar. "Poor girl!"

"Doctor Lavendar, make him come to us. _You_ can do it. You can do
anything!"

"Mary, neither you nor I nor anybody else can 'make' a harvest anything
but the seed which has been sowed. My child, you sowed vanity and
selfishness." . . . By and by he put his hand on hers and said: "Mary,
wait. Wait till you love him more and yourself less."

It was dark when she went away.

When Doctor King came in in the evening he said to himself that Mary
Robertson and the whole caboodle of 'em weren't worth the weariness in
the wise old face.

"William," said Doctor Lavendar, "I hope there won't be any conundrums
in heaven; I don't seem able to answer them any more." Then the
whimsical fatigue vanished and he smiled. "Lately I've just said, 'Wait:
God knows.' And stopped guessing."

But he didn't stop thinking.

CHAPTER VII

AS for Johnny's mother, she kept on thinking, too, but she yielded, for
the moment, to the inevitableness of her harvest. And of course the
devotion, and the invitations to Philadelphia, and the summers in Old
Chester continued. Johnny's bored good humor accepted them all patiently
enough; "for she is kind," he reminded himself. "And I like _him_," he
used to tell his aunt Lydia. Once he confided his feelings on this
subject to William King:

"They are queer folks, the Robertsons," Johnny said. "Why do they
vegetate down here in Old Chester? They don't seem to know anybody but
Aunt Lydia."