t dropped through the tiny window under the
roof.

"Martin Hallowell Crawford," he said.

She would always remember just how he looked, standing there with the
sunshine on his yellow mop of curly hair, his chubby face smiling and
then whitening suddenly as they both heard a sound behind them. She
turned to see Anthony Crawford standing upon the stair.

CHAPTER VII

THE PORTRAIT OF CICELY

If Janet had needed any further clue to Anthony Crawford's character,
she would have had it in the sudden trembling terror of his little
son. She was shaking herself, yet she mustered an outward appearance
of courage for a moment, as she turned to face him squarely and to
hear his biting words:

"First the brother, peering over the wall, then the sister, rummaging
through my house. Did Jasper Peyton send you here to find where I kept
the picture of Cicely Hallowell that he was so reluctant to give up to
me?"

"I didn't know it was Cicely Hallowell," returned Janet, trying to
speak steadily. "I didn't even know that she was a real person; I
thought she was just some one in a story."

Then as Crawford stepped nearer, as little Martin gave a sudden squeak
of alarm, blind panic took possession of her. She ran toward the
stairs and, though the man put out his arm to intercept her, she
dodged under it with undignified agility and plunged down the steps.
They were of the broad, shallow kind that made her feel, for all her
speed, that she would never reach the bottom, yet she came at last
into the hall below and out upon the stoop. She fled past Mrs.
Crawford, sitting with the sleeping baby across her lap and looking up
anxiously, with good cause for misgiving since she had heard her
husband go up the stair.

It was only when she was safely outside the gate that Janet stopped to
draw breath, to realize how her knees were trembling and how her heart
was pounding. Yet it stopped suddenly and seemed to miss a beat when
she realized something further, that she still held in her hand the
miniature of Cicely Hallowell.

"Can I go back?" she wondered desperately, but knew instantly that she
could never find courage to do so. She went on, hurrying and stumbling
as she made her way down the lane. Only once she ventured to look over
her shoulder and saw Anthony Crawford standing on the doorstep staring
after her while the scarecrow that was so vaguely like him seemed to
be lifting its straw-filled arm in a mocking gesture of farewe