sistent youngster. She
clasped Charlie tightly to her and kissed his eager face. And that
embrace sealed the beginning of an affection between them, the very
purity of which was one day to lead her from the terrible Valley of
Doubt into the sunlight of belief.

"Now you've done it," was Marjorie's merry accusation. "You've stolen my
cavalier. Oh, Charlie, I thought I was your very best girl." She made
reproachful eyes at Charlie, who, delighted at receiving so much
attention, sidled over to her with a ridiculous air of importance and
took her hand.

"Everybody likes Charlie," he observed complacently. "Now he can stay up
all night and listen to the band."

"You'd go to sleep and never hear the band at all," laughed Constance.
"No, Charlie must go to bed and sleep and sleep, or he will never grow
big enough and strong enough to play in the band."

The half pout on Charlie's babyish mouth, born of Constance's dread
edict, died suddenly. Even the joys of staying up all night were not to
be compared with the glories of that far-off future.

"All right, I'll go," he sighed. "But you and Marjorie must come again
soon in the daytime when I don't have to go to bed. I'll play a new
piece for you on my fiddle. Uncle John says it's a marv'lus
compysishun."

A burst of laughter rose from the group around him at this calm
statement. After kissing everyone in his immediate vicinity, Charlie
made a quaint little bow and marched off beside Constance, well pleased
with himself.

"Isn't he a perfect darling?" was Mary's involuntary tribute.

"Yes, I adore Charlie," returned Marjorie. "I used to feel so dreadfully
for him when he was crippled. Isn't it splendid, Mr. Stevens, to see him
so well and lively?" She turned radiantly to the white-haired musician.
His face lighted again in that wonderful smile. He was about to answer
Marjorie, when Constance, who had seen Charlie to the door where he had
been taken in charge by a white-capped nurse, returned to them, saying:

"What shall we have first, girls, a one step?"

"Oh, yes, do!" exclaimed Jerry Macy, who had come up in time to hear
Constance's question, in company with a mischievous-eyed,
freckled-faced youth who rejoiced in the dignified cognomen of Daniel
Webster Seabrooke, but who was most appropriately nicknamed the Gadfly.

"Mr. Seabrooke, Miss Raymond," introduced Jerry.

The freckled-faced boy put on a preternaturally solemn expression and
begged the pleasure of the