did not wait to hear; he was sure the little
Thomas had, and he said we were coming upstairs to restore it to him. Of
course I had said by this time that I was Zerlina's sister-in-law.

We went upstairs, I following the tall Thomas, past the drawing-room,
past that bedroom whose door I knew was closed. A mother's bedroom is
nearly always in the same place in a London house, a child blindfolded
could find it, and the handle of a mother's door is always within the
reach of the smallest child; and so easily does it turn, that the door
opens at the slightest pressure of the smallest fingers.

Up we went to Thomas's own bedroom. There in his bed he sat, no longer
crying, but still sad and solemn, with evidences in his face of a sorrow
that rankled. He smiled when he saw me, too much of a gentleman to show
any surprise at seeing me in his bedroom.

"Thomas," I said, "I have brought you back your screw which you lost." I
put it in his outstretched hand, and a smile rippled all over his face.

Suddenly from out the darkness came a stentorian voice, "Right hand,
Tomus!" It was Fraulein! Thomas put out his right hand, and I, putting
aside all convention, gave him a real "Sara hug" for the sake of that
mother whose door was closed. It then began to dawn upon me how very
unconventional it was of me to be hugging a comparatively strange child,
in a perfectly strange house, and I hastily said good-night to the
small Thomas and the big Thomas, nurses and Fraulein, and literally ran
downstairs, followed of course by the big Thomas. At the foot of the
stairs I ran into the arms of Mr. Dudley.

His exclamation of "Aunt Woggles" was involuntary, I felt sure, and he
had every right to visit a sad, tall Mr. Thomas. But I thought Diana
ought to have told me that I was likely to meet him at--Well, a
stranger's house; so how could she? The only thing that consoled me was
that in all probability Mr. Dudley would explain my profession in
life, and that I had a screw loose. Yes, that would exactly explain the
position. Otherwise I didn't exactly know how he could describe me.

Well, Zerlina of course said I was mad. She didn't agree with me that
the screw could not possibly have been sent back in an envelope with a
few words of explanation. She said she would have bought a nice toy for
the child. What's the good of a toy to a child when he has lost a screw
which he found his very own self, any more than a squeaking rabbit is
to a child who h