. "I wanted to hear
him shout. You know how that is, Bess." But there was no apology in
the Father's tone. He put out his hand and caught the Boy as he
darted past, and squared him about, with his sturdy little front to
his mother. The Father was smiling in a tender way.

"He is my publisher," he said. "I would rather he published my best
works than any one else. He will pay the highest royalty."

And the Mother, when she slipped across to them, kissed not the Boy
alone, but them both.

The next day they took the Boy back in triumph, the three of them and
the little dog, and after that there was litter and noise and joy as
of old.

Chapter III

The Adopted

The Enemy's chin just reached comfortably to the
top fence-rail, and there it rested, while above it peered a pair of
round blue eyes. It is not usual for an enemy's eyes to be so round
and blue, nor an enemy's chin to reach so short a distance from the
ground.

"She's watching me," Margaret thought; "she wants to see if I've got
far as she has. 'Fore I'd lean my chin on folks's gates and watch
'em!"

"She knows I'm here," reflected the Enemy, "just as well as anything.
'Fore I'd peek at people out o' the ends o' my eyes!"

[Illustration: 'Fore I'd lean my chin on folks's gates and watch 'em!]

Between the two, a little higher than their heads, tilted a motherly
bird on a syringa twig.

"Ter-wit, ter-wee,--pit-ee, pit-ee!" she twittered under her breath.
And it did seem a pity to be quarrellers on a day in May, with the
apple buds turning as pink as pink!

"I sha'n't ever tell her any more secrets," Margaret mused, rather
sadly, for there was that beautiful new one aching to be told.

"I sha'n't ever skip with her again," the Enemy's musings ran
drearily, and the arm she had always put round Margaret when they
skipped felt lonesome and--and empty. And there was that lovely new
level place to skip in!

"Pit-ee! Pit-ee!" sang softly the motherly bird.

It had only been going on a week of seven days. It was exactly a week
ago to-day it began, while they were making the birthday presents
together, Margaret sitting in this very chair and Nell--the Enemy
sitting on the toppest door-step. Who would have thought it was
coming? There was nothing to warn--no thunder in the sky, no little
mother-bird on the syringa bush. It just _came_--oh, hum!

"I'm ahead!" the Enemy had suddenly announced, waving her book-mark.
She had got to the "h" in her Mot