would ever be called upon to defy his
grandfather. He saw himself doing it--quietly, a perfect gentleman
always, but with the noble determination of one performing a
disagreeable duty. His chin lifted and his shoulders squared against the
back of the buggy.

Mr. Keeler, who had apparently forgotten his passenger altogether, broke
into song,

"She's my darlin' hanky-panky
And she wears a number two,
Her father keeps a barber shop
Way out in Kalamazoo."

He sang the foregoing twice over and then added a chorus, plainly
improvised, made up of "Di doos" and "Di dums" ad lib. And the buggy
rolled up and over the slope of a little hill and, in the face of a
screaming sea wind, descended a long, gentle slope to where, scattered
along a two-mile water frontage, the lights of South Harniss twinkled
sparsely.

"Did doo dum, dee dum, doo dum
Di doo dum, doo dum dee."

So sang Mr. Keeler. Then he broke off his solo as the little mare turned
in between a pair of high wooden posts bordering a drive, jogged along
that drive for perhaps fifty feet, and stopped beside the stone step
of a white front door. Through the arched window above that door shone
lamplight warm and yellow.

"Whoa!" commanded Mr. Keeler, most unnecessarily. Then, as if himself a
bit uncertain as to his exact whereabouts, he peered out at the door and
the house of which it was a part, afterward settling back to announce
triumphantly: "And here we be! Yes, sir, here we be!"

Then the door opened. A flood of lamplight poured upon the buggy and its
occupants. And the boy saw two people standing in the doorway, a man and
a woman.

It was the woman who spoke first. It was she who had opened the door.
The man was standing behind her looking over her shoulder--over her head
really, for he was tall and broad and she short and slender.

"Is it--?" she faltered.

Mr. Keeler answered. "Yes, ma'am," he declared emphatically, "that's who
'tis. Here we be--er--er--what's-your-name--Edward. Jump right out."

His passenger alighted from the buggy. The woman bent forward to look at
him, her hands clasped.

"It--it's Albert, isn't it?" she asked.

The boy nodded. "Yes," he said.

The hands unclasped and she held them out toward him. "Oh, Albert," she
cried, "I'm your grandmother. I--"

The man interrupted. "Wait till we get him inside, Olive," he said.
"Come in, son." Then, addressing the driver, he ordered: "Labe,