t help loving!"

Anne clapped her hands. "Ah, so I have penetrated your indifference at
last, sir!"

Impulsively, she laid her hand upon his arm, and spoke with earnestness.
"Dear Rudolph, I am so glad you've found the woman you can really love.
Jack says there is only one possible woman in the world for each man,
and that only in a month of Sundays does he find her."

"Yes." said Musgrave. He had risen, and was looking down in friendly
fashion into her honest, lovely eyes. "Yes, there is only one possible
woman. And--yes, I think I found her, Anne, some years ago."

III

Thus it befell that all passed smoothly with Rudolph Musgrave and Anne
Charteris, with whom he was not in the least in love any longer (he
reflected), although in the nature of things she must always seem to him
a little different from all other people.

And it befell, too, that the following noon--this day being a Sunday,
warm, clear, and somnolent--Anne Charteris and Rudolph Musgrave sat upon
the lawn before Matocton, and little Roger Musgrave was with them. In
fact, these two had been high-handedly press-ganged by this small despot
to serve against an enemy then harassing his majesty's equanimity and by
him, revilingly, designated as Nothing-to-do.

And so Anne made for Roger--as she had learned to do for her dead
son--in addition to a respectable navy of paper boats, a vast number of
"boxes" and "Nantucket sinks" and "picture frames" and "footballs." She
had used up the greater part of a magazine before the imp grew tired of
her novel accomplishments.

For as he invidiously observed, "I can make them for myself now, most
as good as you, only I always tear the bottom of the boat when you pull
it out, and my sinks are kind of wobbly. And besides, I've made up a
story just like your husband gets money for doing. And if I had a
quarter I would buy that green and yellow snake in the toy-store window
and wiggle it at people and scare them into fits."

"Sonnikins," said Colonel Musgrave, "suppose you tell us the story, and
then we will see if it is really worth a quarter, and try to save you
from this unblushing mendicancy."

"Well, God bless Father and Mother and little cousins--Oh, no, that's
what I say at night." Roger's voice now altered, assuming shrill
singsong cadences. His pensive gravity would have appeared excessive if
manifested by the Great Sphinx. "What I meant to say was that once upon
a time when the Battle of Gettysburg