e."

And then she left him, in the position of a self-indulgent idler,
preferring comfort to duty, a foil to his more conscientious rival.
When the dust of the departure had cleared away, he sat on, not in the
cool house, but on the hot verandah, nursing his griefs in solitude. He
seemed the only person left behind, or else he seemed forgotten, as a
guest of no account. "What a Christmas Day!" was again his thought,
while he dragged before his mind's eye old pictures of his English
home, his dead mother, Santa Claus stockings, and all sorts of pathetic
things. He resolved to quit Redford on the morrow, and spend the last
hours of his leave in establishing his son elsewhere.

Then Mary Pennycuick came out to him, with that son in her arms. Her
face was redeemed from its plainness by the tender motherliness and the
no less tender friendliness of its expression; that of little Harry was
cherubic. The heart of the lonely man warmed to both.

"He has come to tell daddy that he is a good boy now," explained Mary
proudly. Guthrie ejaculated "Sonny boy!" and held out his arms. The
baby, bearing no malice, tumbled into them, and was at once occupied
with his father's watch-chain. The three subsided upon two cane chairs,
looking, as Mary keenly comprehended, like a self-contained family.

"You have stayed at home because of him!" the man complained fretfully.

But the girl hastened to perjure herself with the assertion that she
had done nothing of the kind. She then persuaded him to the half-belief
that his child was not only no nuisance to the house, but its positive
delight; and she earnestly talked him out of his cruel resolve to
return it to bad air and all sorts of domestic risks. "How can he be
any burden on us?" she pleaded. "We need never see him unless we
like--only, of course, we shall like. It is entirely an arrangement
between you and Mrs Kelsey. Unless," she bethought herself--"unless
you'd like to consider an idea of Alice Urquhart's--"

"Oh, no!" he broke in. "I'd rather Mrs Kelsey--a proper business
agreement--if I could feel absolutely certain--"

"Well, you can," said Mary. "The beginning and end of all the trouble
to us is our answering for Mrs Kelsey. She was once our nurse, and we
know her ways; for the rest, she is as independent of us as that lady
in Sandridge."

"In that case--of course, I've very little time, and really I don't
know where to turn--perhaps until after this voyage--"

"Yes. Then,