xes and crates, and lost himself in the
bare, rugless halls. The beds that were to be taken to Asquam were still
set up,--they would be crated next day,--but there was really nothing
else left in the rooms. Three excited people, two of them very tired,
ate supper on the corner of the kitchen table--which was not going to
the farm-house. That house flowered hopefully in its new tenants' minds.
Felicia saw it, tucked between its orchards, gray roof above gnarled
limbs, its wide stone door-step inviting one to sit down and look at the
view of the bay. And there would be no need of spending anything there
except that fifteen dollars a month--"and something for food," Felicia
thought, "which oughtn't to be much, there in the country with hens and
things."

It amused Kirk highly--going to bed in an empty room. He put his clothes
on the floor, because he could find no other place for them. Felicia
remonstrated and suggested the end of the bed.

"Everything else you own is packed, you know," said she. "You'd better
preserve those things carefully."

"Sing to me," he said, when he was finally tucked in. "It's the last
night--and--everything's so ugly. I want to pretend it's just the same.
Sing '_Do-do, petit frere_,' Phil."

Felicia sat on the edge of the bed and sang the little old French
lullaby. She had sung it to him often when she was quite a small girl,
and he a very little boy. She remembered just how he used to look--a
cuddly, sleepy three-year-old, with a tumble of dark hair and the same
grave, unlit eyes. He was often a little frightened, in those days, and
needed to hold a warm substantial hand to link him with the mysterious
world he could not see.

"_Do-do, p'tit frere, do-do_."

His hand groped down the blanket, now, for hers, and she took it and
sang on a bit unsteadily in the echoing bareness of the dismantled room.

A long time afterward, when Kenelm was standing beside his window
looking out into the starless dark, Felicia's special knock sounded
hollowly at his door.

She came over to him, and stood for a while silently. Then she turned
and said suddenly in a shy, low voice:

"Oh, Ken, I don't know how you feel about it, but--but, I think,
whatever awful is going to happen, we must try to keep things beautiful
for Kirk."

"I guess we must," Ken said, staring out. "I'd trust you to do it, old
Phil. Cut along now to bed," he added gruffly; "we'll have to be up like
larks to-morrow."

CHAPTER