rder of geese, cut out to the snip of Ann's
own scissors, waddling across the wall.

It was two and a half years since Mrs. Plush had died, and the boarders,
as if spilled from an ark on rough seas, had struck out for diverse
shores. The marvel to them now was that they had delayed so long.

"A home of our own, Ann. Pretty sweet, isn't it?"

"Oh, daddy, it is!"

"You mustn't overdo, though, baby. Sometimes we're not so strong as we
think we are. A little hired girl would be best." The fish business had
more than held its own.

"But I love doing it alone, dad. It--it's the next best thing to a home
of--my own."

He looked startled into her dreaming eyes.

"Your own? Why, Annie, isn't this--your own?"

She laid fingers against his eyes so that he could not see the pinkiness
of her.

"You know what I mean, daddy--my--very--own."

At that timid phrasing of hers Henry felt that his heart was actually
strangling, as if some one were holding it back on its systolic swing,
like a caught pendulum.

"Why, Annie," he said, "I never thought--"

But inevitably and of course it had happened.

The young man's name was Willis--Fred E. Willis--already credit man in
a large wholesale grocery firm and two feet well on the road to
advancement. A square-faced, clean-faced fellow, with a clean love of
life and of Ann Elizabeth in his heart.

Henry liked him.

Ann Elizabeth loved him.

And yet, what must have been a long-smoldering flame of fear shot up
through the very core of Henry's being, excoriating.

"Why, Ann Elizabeth," he kept repeating, in his slow and always
inarticulate manner, "I--You--Mine--I just never thought."

She wound the softest of arms about his neck.

"I know, daddy-darlums, and I'll never leave you. Never. Fred has
promised we will always be together. We'll live right here with you, or
you with us."

"Annie," he cried, "you mustn't ever--marry. I mean, leave daddy--that
way--anyway. You hear me? You're daddy's own. Just his by himself.
Nobody is good enough for my girl."

"But, daddy," clouding up for tears, "I thought you liked Fred so much!"

"I do, but it's you I'm talking about. Nobody can have you."

"But I love him, daddy. This is terrible. I love him."

"Oh, Ann, Ann! daddy hasn't done right, perhaps, but he meant well.
There are _reasons_ why he wants to keep his little girl with him
always--alone--his."

"But, daddy dear, I promise you we'll never let you be lonely. Why, I
cou