e three
kittens."

With a sigh of ineffable relief she resigned the dead weight in her
weary arms to him, and he, stepping softly, and holding him gently as
a woman, soon had the boy more comfortable than he had been for hours.
Mary and Tommie followed, and then Nellie, free of her responsibility
at last, bent forward, put her elbows on her knees, and wept.

Code, racked and embarrassed, looked around for his mother, but that
mainstay was nowhere in sight. He thought of whistling, so as to
appear unconscious of her tears, but concluded that would be merely
rude. To take up a paper or book and read it in the face of a woman's
weeping appeared hideous, although for the first time in many months,
he felt irresistibly drawn to the ancient and dusty volumes in the
glass-doored bookcase.

He compromised by turning his back on the affecting sight, thrusting
his hands in his pockets, and studying the remarkably straight line
formed by the abrupt junction of the wall and the ceiling.

"Do you mind if I cry, C--Code?" sobbed the girl, apparently realizing
their position for the first time.

"No! Go right ahead!" he cried as heartily as though some one had
asked for a match. He was intensely happy that the matter was settled
between them. Now the harder she cried the more he liked it, for they
understood one another. So she cried and he walked softly about, his
hands in his pockets and his lips puckered for the whistle that he did
not dare permit himself.

Ma Schofield interrupted this near-domestic scene by her arrival,
carrying a tray, on which were several glasses covered with a film of
frost and out of which appeared little green forests. Code ceased to
think about whistling.

"Oh, Ma Schofield, what have you done?" cried Nellie, her tears for
the moment forgetting to flow as her widening eyes took in the
delights of the frosted glasses and piles of cake behind them.

"Done?" queried ma. "I haven't done anything but what my conscience
tells me ought to be done. If yours cal'lates to disturb you some you
can go right on up to your room, lamb, for you must be dead with
lugging them children around."

Nellie's tears disappeared not to return. She shook her head.

"No, ma," she said; "my conscience is just like them children--sleeping
so hard it would take Gabriel's trumpet to wake 'em up. It's more
tired than I am."

"All right," said ma, with finality; "we will now proceed to refresh
ourselves."

It was two o'cl