decency would permit, reasoning that it would be a mutual relief when
the visit was over.

But a single day in the cozy little house at the water's edge had
served to convince him how erroneous had been his premises. Instead of
being tiresome, his Aunt Celestina was proving a delightful
acquisition, toward whom he already found himself cherishing a warm
regard. And what a cook she was! After months of city food her bread,
pies, and cookies were ambrosial.

As for Willie--Bob had never before beheld so gentle, ingenuous and
lovable a personality. Undoubtedly the little inventor had genius.
What a pity he had been cheated of the opportunity for cultivating it!
There was something pathetic in the way he reached out for the
knowledge life had denied him; it reminded one of a patient child who
asks for water to slake his thirst.

If, for some inscrutable reason, fortune had granted him, Robert
Morton, the chance denied this groping soul, was it not almost an
obligation that, in so far as he was able, he should place at the
other's disposal the fruits of the education that had been his?

Presumably this motor-boat idea would not amount to much, for if such
an invention were plausible and of value, doubtless a score of nautical
authorities would have seized upon it long before now. But to work at
the plan would give the gentle dreamer in the silver-gray cottage
happiness, and after all happiness was not to be despised. If together
he and Willie could make tangible the notion that existed in the
latter's brain, the deed was certainly worth the doing. Moreover the
process would be an entertaining one, and after its completion he might
go away with a sense of having brightened at least one horizon by his
coming.

Thus reasoned Robert Morton as in the peace of that June evening he
casually shuffled the cards of fate, little suspecting that already a
factor in his destiny stronger than any of his arguments was soon to
make its influence felt and transform Wilton into a magnet so powerful
that against its spell he would be helpless as a child.

He was aroused from his meditations by the voice of Willie.

"Didn't you hear a little bell?" demanded the inventor. "A sort of
tinklin' noise?"

"I thought I did."

"It's the box comin' from Jan's," explained he. "Can you kitch a sight
of it?"

"I see it now."

Rising, the old man tugged at the string, urging the reluctant
messenger through the tangle of roses.

"By