t vocal with lamentations for the runaway.

"Po' lil lamb!" said Aunt Basha, with an undisguised scowl at the
Bishop. "Seems like some folks dunno nuff to know a baby's bedtime.
Seems like de Lawd's anointed wuz in po' business, ti'in' out chillens!"

"I'm sorry, Aunt Basha," said the Bishop, humbly. "I'll bring her back
earlier again. I forgot all about the time."

"Huh!" was all the response that Aunt Basha vouchsafed, and the Bishop,
feeling himself hopelessly in the wrong, withdrew in discreet silence.

Luncheon was over the next day and the two men were quietly smoking
together in the hot, drowsy quiet of the July mid-afternoon before the
Bishop found a chance to speak to Fielding alone. There was an hour and
a half before service, and this was the time to say his say, and he
gathered himself for it, when suddenly the tongue of the ready speaker,
the _savoir faire_ of the finished man of the world, the mastery of
situations which had always come as easily as his breath, all failed him
at once.

"Dick," he stammered, "there is something I want to tell you," and he
turned on his friend a face which astounded him.

"What on earth is it? You look as if you'd been caught stealing a hat,"
he responded, encouragingly.

The Bishop felt his heart thumping as that healthy organ had not
thumped for years. "I feel a bit that way," he gasped. "You remember
what we were talking of the other day?"

"The other day--talking--" Fielding looked bewildered. Then his face
darkened. "You mean Dick--the affair with that girl." His voice was at
once hard and unresponsive. "What about it?"

"Not at all," said the Bishop, complainingly. "Don't misunderstand like
that, Dick--it's so much harder."

"Oh!" and Fielding's look cleared. "Well, what is it then, old man? Out
with it--want a check for a mission? Surely you don't hesitate to tell
me that! Whatever I have is yours, too--you know it."

The Bishop looked deeply disgusted. "Muddlehead!" was his unexpected
answer, and Fielding, serene in the consciousness of generosity and good
feeling, looked as if a hose had been turned on him.

"What the devil!" he said. "Excuse me, Jim, but just tell me what you're
after. I can't make you out."

"It's most difficult." The Bishop seemed to articulate with trouble.
"It was so long ago, and I've never spoken of it." Fielding, mouth and
eyes wide, watched him as he stumbled on. "There were three of us, you
see--though, of course, you didn't