men like to be alone."

"Robin's a man now?"

"Yes, a little man. I do hope the gaiters will fit him. I haven't dared
to try them on yet. And I've got him the dearest little whip you ever
saw."

"Jane will have to look to her paces. I'm sorry you're not coming,
Rose."

But he did not try to persuade her. He believed that she had a very
sweet reason behind her abstention. She had had Robin all to herself for
many months; perhaps she thought the father ought to have his turn now,
perhaps to-day she was handing over her little son to his father for the
education which always comes from a man. Her sudden unselfishness--Dion
believed it was that--touched him to the heart. But it made him long to
do something, many things, for her.

"I'm determined that you and Welsley shan't part from each other
forever," he said. "We'll hit on some compromise. This house is on our
hands, anyhow, till the spring."

"Perhaps we could sublet it," said Rosamund, trying to speak with brisk
cheerfulness.

"We'll talk it over again to-night."

"And now for Robin's gaiters!"

They fitted perfectly; "miraculously" was Rosamund's word for the way
they fitted.

"His legs might a-been poured into them almost, a-dear," was nurse's
admirably descriptive comment on the general effect produced.

Robin looked at his legs with deep solemnity. When the great project
for this day of days had been broken to him he had fallen upon awe. His
prattling ardors had subsided, stilled by a greater joy than any that
had called them forth in his complex past of a child. Now he gazed at
his legs, which were stretched out at right angles to his body on a
nursery chair, as if they were not his. Then he looked up at his mother,
his father, nurse; then once more down at his legs. His eyes were
inquiring. They seemed to say, "Can it be?"

"Bless him! He can't hardly believe in it!" muttered nurse. "And no
wonder."

A small sigh came from Robin. To his father and mother it came like the
whisper of happiness, that good fairy which men cannot quite get rid
of, try as they may. Two small hands went down to the little gaiters
and felt them carefully. Then Robin looked up again, this time at his
father, and smiled. Instinctively he connected his father with these
wonderful appurtenances, although his mother had bought them and put
them on him. With that smile he gave the day to his father, and Dion
took it with just a glance at Rosamund--a glance which deprecated