t troubled. In his eyes she saw that which is worth more to
the young mother than all else the world can give, but she entered into
the spirit of his mood. She replied, gently, that she didn't know what
to do, but had he the bad taste to kiss an Ape? And he admitted that
he had, and kissed the object gently, as if afraid of breaking it, and
kissed the gentle mother a hundred to one.

I liked the Ape--for so they came to allude to that sturdy babe. He
may be my heir some day--though he was named, as Jean insisted, for his
father--and I had many a frolic with him in his babyhood, when I was
allowed to enter the sanctuary of that home. He was a little viking, a
little raider, this child, conceived in the forest. There seemed to
have come to him the daring and the vigor of outdoor things, and the
force of nature. A great man-child was this.

I was not alone in the rejoicing over the infant, though really he was,
it seems to me, as dear to me, the isolated man, as to his parents.
They rioted in their vast possession, and were very foolish people.
But why should I keep repeating that these two were very foolish people
together?

They were like other fathers and mothers, in some respects, but one
difference I noted. They seemed almost to adore the child, but he was
never first with either of them. He but bound the two more closely
together, and the looks of the man were sometimes almost worshipful as
he looked upon the mother of his child. And she--she understood, and
they were glad together. Their kingdom had been but enlarged.

It is not to be supposed that this whimsical couple--for they were
really whimsical, these friends of mine, as must have appeared often in
my account could rear a child without grotesqueries. The woman, I am
afraid, was, before she became a mother, addicted to monkey tricks,
even to the extent of bounding leopard-like upon the man from
unexpected places, and the Ape was, in his early days, bred in a way
barbaric. They had great times with the Ape.

One day Grant Harlson had his business for the day concluded early. He
could reach home as a little after five o'clock, where dinner came at
six. One of the fiercest of summer rains was falling. He started
buoyantly. He wanted his wife and boy.

He reached the house and entered. No wife was there to greet him; no
drunken-footed babe, for the Ape had learned to walk now, albeit
unsteadily; not even a servant girl to make some explanat