ly
cheerful voice, born either from his own escape from responsibility or
her brightened prospects. "He is going to give you everything."

Penelope was on the verge of tears, but she held them back. "I don't
want everything," she said, as she strove to check her forced advance by
planting her feet firmly and leaning back against my mother. "I just
want to stay here till father comes."

"But your father will come to us--of course, he will come to us,
Penelope," Mr. Blight cried. His hands closed on hers, he hooked an arm
about her and held her very cautiously, as though he were as afraid of
her as she of him. "You mustn't be frightened, my dear," he went on,
and, soothed by his kindly tones, she leaned against his knee. "That's
better, child." Encouraged by her half-yielding attitude, he stroked her
hair. To me, watching them from the hiding of my mother's skirt, she had
fallen into a magician's clutches and was being lulled by soft words into
an indifference to danger.

"I'm your father's brother, child," he pursued, in his insinuating tone.
"Next to him I'm nearer to you than any one else, and to me there is no
one as near as he. We will try to find him together--you and I, eh? And
we'll all live together in Pittsburgh. You'll like Pittsburgh--it's a
very lively, pushing town."

"But I want to stay here with Davy," said Penelope in a low voice.

"With Davy?" Mr. Blight stared at her in surprise. Then he began to
laugh as though he were contrasting all he could give her with Davy's
humble powers. "Child--child--you don't realize what you are refusing.
You don't realize what your Uncle Rufus is going to do for you. I've no
one to look after--you will be the joy of a poor old bachelor's heart,
won't you, now?"

He spoke as though being a poor old bachelor was quite the pleasantest
possible condition, yet he rolled out the phrase twice as if to touch
Penelope's heart. Remembering the only other bachelor I had ever seen, I
stared at him in wonder. This other was Philip Spangler, who sat all day
in the store gazing vacantly at the stove. Once I asked Stacy Shunk why
he stayed there, and Stacy, lifting a warning finger, whispered: "He's
jest a bachelor, Davy, an old, old bachelor." Contrasting him with Mr.
Blight, I was puzzled. If it was a terrible thing to be an old bachelor,
certainly he accepted the condition lightly; he was trying to arouse
sympathy when it was plain that he did not need or dese