shyness on her part now, and no boredom on
his. Little Harry fused them. She had remembered to bring fresh milk
and rusks for a possibly hungry baby, and he sat on her lap as she fed
him, and cooed to her when his mouth was not too full, and seemed to
forget that any other foster-mother had ever existed. His father's
relieved and astonished pleasure in the sight was only equalled by
Mary's pleasure in seeing his pleasure. "Isn't he a jolly little cuss,
Miss Pennycuick?" "He is a perfect darling," crooned Mary, kissing him.

And, in fact, Harry Carey was a fine, clean, wholesome child, as worthy
of his old family as any born under the ancestral roof.

Mary shouldered him as if he belonged to her when they arrived at
Redford, shortly before the dinner hour.

"Now, Mr Carey, you must go to the bachelors' quarters, I am sorry to
say; but he will not miss you, since you have been away from him for so
long. He knows me now," said Mary proudly, "and I will take charge of
him. You may safely leave him to us now."

"Indeed, yes, I know that," said the thankful parent, and hastened to
his new quarters to receive the greetings and chaffings of the young
bachelors, and to dress himself for dinner, while Mary carried the baby
into the house, calling on Keziah Moon to come to her, the inadequate
nurse-girl trailing at her heels.

The house party gathered in the glazed corridor of the "middle part"--a
long, narrow room, that had once been a verandah, and that led to the
new big dining-room--to await the summons to the meal. Here Deb,
beautiful in limp white silk that showed up the lovely carmine of her
cheeks, came forward to welcome the returned guest with an eager warmth
that sadly misled him. He sat down to his dinner a few minutes later
with his head in a whirl and his appetite nowhere, as an effect of that
cordial pressure of the hand, those tender eyes, and that deep-hued
blush upon him.

Then, as he came to himself, there crept into his mind a sense that
things had been happening while he was away. All the eyes around the
table seemed continually to turn either towards Deb, who, still
flushed, and bestowing absent-minded smiles upon anybody and anything,
was certainly different from her usual stately self; or upon Claud
Dalzell, who sat beside her, and seemed to have appropriated some of
her lost dignity; or upon Mr Pennycuick, who fumbled oddly with carving
knife and gravy spoon, and gave other evidences, Guthrie thought