m, or
see him, or take his hand. She may pass him some day on the street and
will not know him, and he will not know her, but she will grow to be
very fond and to be very grateful to the simple, kind-hearted old
people who will have cared for her when she was a little girl."

The child in his arms stirred, shivered slightly, and awoke. The two
men watched her breathlessly, with silent intentness. She raised her
head and stared around the unfamiliar room doubtfully, then turned to
where her father stood, looking at him a moment, and passed him by;
and then, looking up into Van Bibber's face, recognized him, and gave
a gentle, sleepy smile, and, with a sigh of content and confidence,
drew her arm up closer around his neck, and let her head fall back
upon his breast.

The father sprang to his feet with a quick, jealous gasp of pain.
"Give her to me!" he said, fiercely, under his breath, snatching her
out of Van Bibber's arms. "She is mine; give her to me!"

Van Bibber closed the door gently behind him, and went jumping down
the winding stairs of the Berkeley three steps at a time.

And an hour later, when the English servant came to his master's door,
he found him still awake and sitting in the dark by the open window,
holding something in his arms and looking out over the sleeping city.

"James," he said, "you can make up a place for me here on the lounge.
Miss Caruthers, my daughter, will sleep in my room to-night."

VAN BIBBER'S MAN-SERVANT

Van Bibber's man Walters was the envy and admiration of his friends.
He was English, of course, and he had been trained in the household of
the Marquis Bendinot, and had travelled, in his younger days, as the
valet of young Lord Upton. He was now rather well on in years,
although it would have been impossible to say just how old he was.
Walters had a dignified and repellent air about him, and he brushed
his hair in such a way as to conceal his baldness.

And when a smirking, slavish youth with red cheeks and awkward
gestures turned up in Van Bibber's livery, his friends were naturally
surprised, and asked how he had come to lose Walters. Van Bibber could
not say exactly, at least he could not rightly tell whether he had
dismissed Walters or Walters had dismissed himself. The facts of the
unfortunate separation were like this:

Van Bibber gave a great many dinners during the course of the season
at Delmonico's, dinners hardly formal enough to require a private
room