that it led to an utter loss of patience. "I'll take the train for
Aunt Mary's to-day, and straighten out that mess in short order."

It was Saturday, and he arranged to leave by the noon train. He laid in a
heavy supply of bribes for his aged relative and of reading matter for
himself, and went to the station with a heart divided 'twixt many
different emotions. It was an unconscionably long ride, but he did get
there safely about ten o'clock.

It was a pleasant night--not too cold--even suggestive of some lingering
Indian summer intentions on the part of Jack's namesake. The young man
thought that he would walk out to his childhood's home, and his decision
was aided by the discovery that there was no other way to get there.

So he took his suit-case in his hand and set off with a stride that
covered the intervening miles in short order and brought him, almost
before he knew it, to where he could see Lucinda's light in the
dining-room and her pug-nosed profile outlined upon the drawn shade.
Everyone else was evidently abed, and as he looked, she, too, arose and
took up the lamp. He hurried his steps so that she might let him in before
she went upstairs, but in the same instant the light went out and with its
withdrawal he perceived a little figure sitting alone upon the doorstep.

His heart gave a tremendous leap--but not with fright--and he made three
rapid steps and spoke a name.

She lifted up her head. Of course it was Janice, and although she had been
weeping, her eyes were as beautiful as ever.

"Oh, Jack!" she exclaimed, and happy the man who hears his name called in
such a tone--even if it be only for once in the whole course of his
existence.

He pitched his suit-case down upon the grass and took the maid in his
arms.

What did anything matter; they both were lonely and both needed
comforting.

He kissed her not once but twenty times,--not twenty times but a hundred.

"It's abominable you're being here," he said at last.

"I am very, very tired," she confessed.

"And you'll go back to the city when I go?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said, doubtfully. "I don't know whether she'll let
me."

Jack laughed.

"To-morrow I will beard Aunt Mary in her den," he declared; "now let's go
in and--and--"

The hundred and first!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - TWO ARE COMPANY

To the large square room where he had slept (on and off) during a goodly
portion of his boyhood life, Jack went to repose fr