ed by Lily Bland, the meeting
could go forward to a glorious termination in ice-cream. Now and then
there were difficult questions or observations, but they were never
pressed unduly for reply.

"Papa, why don't you live with us any more?"

"Papa, shall we have another papa after this one?"

"Papa, our other papa has a funny nose."

"Papa, are you our real papa, or is papa Lacon?"

In general it was Chippie who put these questions or made the remarks.
Tom seemed to understand already that the situation was delicate, and
had moments of puzzled gravity.

But, taking one thing with another, the occasion passed off well, as did
similar meetings through the rest of that winter and whenever they were
possible--which was not often--in the summer that followed. It was a joy
to Chip when they began again in the autumn, with a promise of
regularity. But that joy, too, was short-lived.

It was his second time of seeing them after the general return to town.
Tom was hanging on his shoulder, while Chippie was seated on his knee.
Chippie was again the spokesman.

"We've got a baby sister at our house."

It seemed to Chip as if all the blood in his body rushed back to his
heart and stayed there. He felt dizzy, sick. The walls of his fool's
paradise were dissolved as mist, revealing a picture he had seen twice
already, each time with an upleaping of the primal and the fatherly in
him; but now ... Edith had been lying in bed, wan, bright-eyed, happy,
with a little fuzzy head just peeping at her breast!

He put the boy from off his knee. Tom seemed to divine something and
stole away. For a second or two both lads watched him--Chippie looking
up straight into his face, Tom gazing from the distant line of the
bookcase, with his habitual expression of troubled perplexity. Chip
managed to speak at last, getting out the words in a fairly natural
tone.

"Look here, boys; I can't stay to-day. I've got a--I've got a pain. Just
play by yourselves till Miss Bland comes for you. Be good boys, now, and
don't touch any of Mr. Bland's things."

He was hurrying to the door when Chippie interrupted him. "Where have
you got a pain, papa?"

He tapped himself on the heart. "Here, Chippie, here; and I hope you may
never have anything so awful."

As he went down the steps he found himself saying: "Will this
crucifixion never end? Have I deserved it? Was the crime so terrible
that I must be tortured by degrees like this?"

He was unable to