d let up on presents!"

On the whole he liked them more than he failed to like them; perhaps
because they were, to a big, joyous, somewhat conceited youngster,
rather pitiful in the way in which they seemed to hang upon him. He said
as much once to his aunt Lydia; Mrs. Robertson had asked him to come to
supper, but had not asked Miss Lydia. "I suppose I've got to go," he
said, scowling, "but they needn't think I'd rather have supper with them
than with you! I just go because I'm sorry for 'em."

"I am, too, Johnny," she said. She had ceased to be afraid of them by
this time. Yet she might have been just a little afraid if she had known
all that this special invitation involved. . . .

Mary Robertson no longer shared her longing for her son with her
husband. She had not even told him of that day when her misery had
welled up and overflowed in frantic words to Doctor Lavendar. But she
had never resigned herself to reaping what she had sowed. She was still
determined, _somehow_, to get possession of her boy. Occasionally she
spoke of this determination to Doctor Lavendar, just because it was a
relief to put it into words; but he never gave her much encouragement.
He could only counsel a choice of two things: secrecy--and fortitude; or
truth--and doubtful hope.

Little by little hope gained, and truth seemed more possible. And by and
by a plan grew in her mind: she would get Doctor Lavendar to help her to
tell Johnny the truth, and then, supported by religion (as she thought
of it), she would tell her son that it was his duty to live with
her;--"nobody will know _why_! And he can't say 'no,' if Doctor Lavendar
says, 'honor thy father and thy mother'!" That Doctor Lavendar would say
this, she had no doubt whatever, for was he not a minister, and
ministers always counseled people to obey the Commandments. "But when I
get him here, with Johnny, we must be by ourselves," she thought; "I
won't speak before _her_!"

So that was why Miss Lydia was not invited to supper when Johnny
was--Johnny and Doctor Lavendar! Mary Robertson was so tense all that
September day when her two guests were expected that her husband noticed
it.

"You're not well, Mary?" he said.

"Oh yes, yes!" she said--she was pacing up and down, up and down, like a
caged creature. "Carl, Doctor Lavendar is coming this evening."

"My dear, I think that is about the tenth time you have mentioned it! I
should not call the old gentleman a very exciting guest.