the doorway, and she took her into her arms. As for Joel, he
had espied one of the kittens, and was crossing the room after it, when
for the first time he saw John and paused, somewhat abashed.

"Come here." John smiled, holding out his hands, and the boy went to him
trustingly. "My, my! what a solid boy you are!" John went on, taking him
on his knee. "How old are you?"

"Six, and sister's four," was the answer.

Mrs. Trott, still with the look of concern on her face, was putting
Tilly down, that she might empty the pails, and while her back was
turned the little girl crept confidingly to John's disengaged knee. With
a laugh, he took her up also. He was strongly drawn to them both, and
why he couldn't have said, unless it was because they were friends of
his mother and had given her such an endearing appellation.

Mrs. Trott brought the pails back. She still wore an embarrassed look,
which, in his preoccupation over the children, he failed to note.

"They are very nice and friendly," he smiled up at her, an arm about the
body of each child. "Whose are they?"

"Now you must go back," Mrs. Trott said, with obvious evasion, holding
out the pails to Joel. "Tell your mother that I am very much obliged."

"But mother said we must rest awhile here and not come right back," the
boy answered, leaning on John's shoulder.

"No. I's tired, grandmother." Tilly drew back also into her snug
retreat. "Where's the tittens, brother?"

But Joel could see kittens any day, and John was now showing him his
new gold watch and chain and Tilly was admiring his scarf and pin,
daintily touching the rich silk with her tiny sun-browned fingers.

With something like a sigh of resignation Mrs. Trott sank into her chair
and listened to the chat of the trio. That her son was charmed with the
children of his former wife she saw plainly. What would he do or say
when told the truth?--and that it was due him to be told she did not
doubt.

"They are beautiful and lovely," John said, when they both left his lap
and went behind the cabin to see the kittens. "Whose children are they?"

"I see that I must tell you and be done with it," Mrs. Trott said, with
a warm flush. "Can't you guess?"

"Why, how could I guess?" he asked, wonderingly. "They call you
grandmother, too--how is that?"

"John," she gulped, "they are Tilly's and Joel's!"

His moving lips seemed to frame the words she had spoken, but without
the issue of sound. They were both sile