_I_ like him, though I haven't spoken to him. But I'm
going to."

"Oh, Carl, don't--" she besought him.

But he said: "Don't worry. You know I would never do anything rash."

And the next day he stopped boldly at Miss Lydia's door, and talked
about the weather, and gave Johnny a dollar.

"Go downstreet and buy something," he said.

And Johnny said, "Thank you, sir!" and went off, whistling.

"He's a promising boy," Mr. Robertson said, in a low voice.

Miss Lydia was extremely nervous during this five minutes. She had been
nervous during the weeks that Mary and Carl were up there in the big
house. Suppose they should see just how "promising" Johnny was--and want
him?--and say they would take him? Then she would reassure herself:
"They can only take their son--and they don't want _him_!" Yet she was
infinitely relieved when, the next day, the Smith house was finally
closed and the "For Sale or To Let" sign put up on the iron gates that
shut the graveled driveway from Old Chester's highroad.

"They'll sell the house and never come back," she told herself. And
indeed Johnny was a year older, a year more plucky and high-tempered and
affectionate, before Miss Lydia had any further cause for uneasiness.

Then, suddenly, Mr. Carl Robertson appeared in town; he came, he said,
to make sure that the still unsold Smith house was not getting
dilapidated. While he was looking it over he took occasion to tell
several people that that boy who lived with the old lady in the house by
the gate was an attractive youngster.

"I suppose," said Mr. Robertson, "Mary ought to sell that house to
settle the estate, but she says she won't turn the old lady out. The
little beggar she takes care of seems a nice little chap." Then he said,
casually, "Who were his father and mother?"

"That's what nobody knows," some one said; then added, significantly,
"Lydia is very secretive." And some one else said, "There _is_ a
suspicion that the child is her own."

"Her _own_?" Carl Robertson gaped, open-mouthed. And when he turned his
back on this particular gossip his face was darkly red. "Somebody in
this town needs a horse-whipping!" he told himself; "God forbid that
Miss Sampson knows there are such fools in the world!" He was so angry
and ashamed that his half-formed wish to do something for the child
crystallized into purpose. But before he made any effort to carry his
purpose out he discounted public opinion. "Nothing like truth to throw
p