o bring them into the world. No matter how straight they
come at birth, they're all just as liable as not to take an inward crank
and go crooked before the end." He looked thoughtfully at the sparrow
hopping about on the green table, and his face, beautiful with the
wisdom of more than seventy years, was illumined by a smile which seemed
in some way a part of the April sunshine flooding the clumps of red
currant bushes and the miniature box. "George--I mean old George--was
telling me about you, Ben," he went on after a minute, "and as soon as I
heard of your troubles, I said to Tina--'We've got a roof and we've got
a bite, so they'll come to us.' What with Tina's pickling and preserving
we manage to keep a home, my boy, and you're more than welcome to share
it with us--you and Sally and your little Benjamin--"

"Doctor--doctor--" was all I could say, for words failed me, and I,
also, stood looking thoughtfully at the sparrow hopping about on the
green table, with eyes that saw two small brown feathered bodies in the
place where, a minute before, there had been but one.

"Come when you're ready, come when you're ready," he repeated, "and
we'll make you welcome, Tina and I."

I grasped his hand without speaking, and as I wrung it in my own, I felt
that it was long and fine and nervous,--the hand, not of a worker, but
of a dreamer. Then tearing my gaze from the sparrow, I went back through
the clump of red currant bushes, and between the shining rows of oyster
shells, to the busy street which led to a busy world and my office door.

A fortnight later the house was sold over our heads, and when I came up
in the afternoon, I found a red flag flying at the gate, and the dusty
buggies of a few real estate men tied to the young maples on the
sidewalk. Upstairs Sally was sitting on a couch, in the midst of the
scattered furniture, while George Bolingbroke stood looking ruefully at
a pile of silver and bric-a-brac that filled the centre of the floor.

"Are you laughing now, Sally?" I asked desperately, as I entered.

"Not just this minute, dear, because that awful man and a crowd of
people have been going over the house, and Aunt Euphronasia and I locked
ourselves in the nursery. I'll begin again, however, as soon as they've
gone. All these things belong to George. It was silly of him to buy
them, but he says he had no idea of allowing them to go to strangers."

"Well, George as well as anybody, I suppose," I responded, mood