r made you think of
such a thing? _You_ wouldn't like it!" She was going on, as in decency
bound, to add that it would be also rather a large order for the
Marshalls to adopt a notably "difficult" boy, when Judith broke in
with a blunt divination of what was in her aunt's mind. "You'd have
to wash dishes if you came to our house," she said, "and help peel
potatoes, and weed the celery bed."

"I'd like it!" declared Arnold. "We'd have lots of fun."

"I _bet_ we would!" said Judith, with an unexpected assent.

Mrs. Marshall-Smith laughed gently. "You don't know what you're
talking about, you silly boy. You never did an hour's work in your
life!"

Arnold sat down by Mrs. Marshall. "I wouldn't be in the way, _would_
I?" he said, with a clumsy pleading. He hesitated obviously over the
"Mother" which had risen to his lips, the name he had had for her
during the momentous visit of five years before, and finally,
blushing, could not bring it out. "I'd like it like anything! _I_
wouldn't be ... I'd be _different_! Sylvie and Judy seem like little
sisters to me." The red on his face deepened. "It's--it's good for a
fellow to have sisters, and a home," he said in a low tone not audible
to his stepmother's ears.

Mrs. Marshall put out a large, strong hand and took his slack,
big-knuckled fingers into a tight clasp. Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidently
thought a light tone best now, as always, to take. "I tell you,
Barbara"--she suggested laughingly, "we'll exchange. You give me
Sylvia, and take Arnold."

Mrs. Marshall ignored this as pure facetiousness, and said seriously:
"Why really, Victoria, it might not be a bad thing for Arnold to come
to us. I know Elliott would be glad to have him, and so would I."

For an instant Arnold's life hung in the balance. Mrs. Marshall-Smith,
gleaming gold and ivory in her evening-dress of amber satin, sat
silent, startled by the suddenness with which the whole astonishing
question had come up. There was in her face more than one hint that
the proposition opened a welcome door of escape to her....

And then Arnold himself, with the tragic haste of youth, sent one
end of the scales down, weighted so heavily that the sight of his
stepmother's eyes and mouth told him it could never rise again. In the
little, pregnant pause, he cried out joyfully, "Oh, Mother! Mother!"
and flung his arms around Mrs. Marshall's neck. It was the only time
he had shown the slightest emotion over anything. It burst fro