years since the garb she
mentioned had been in vogue. Instead he blushed uncomfortably at the
gurgle in her throat. And so, the next morning, when a little figure
in velvet jacket and pantaloons--velvet of the same jet hue in which
Barbara Allison had first appeared to the boy a day or two
before--stopped at the head of the long stairway, the moment was robbed
of not one whit of its sensationalism.

Caleb remembered then; and it did seem inconceivable that he could ever
have worn that costume, for the boy in the black velvet might have
stepped bodily from the pages of sheerest romance. There were
red-topped boots upon the slim feet which the day before had been
encased in Old Tom's cast-off brogans; these were ruffed cuffs of
sheerest white linen at brown and sinewy wrists, and burnished silver
buttons down the front of the jacket for the silken corded clasps which
fastened it across his small chest--silver buttons to match upon the
quaintly short sleeves.

Stephen O'Mara hesitated just the fraction of a moment before he
started methodically down the stairs. And immediately Caleb's
amazement at the thought that those clothes had once been worn by him
gave way to a newer wonder. For the boy, in spite of the fact that his
small face above the pleated collar was burning hot with consciousness
of self, wore them in a fashion unforgettable. Then Caleb realized how
great an effort it must be costing the boy to make that slow descent in
the face of his goggle-eyed stare, and with the most casual of good
mornings he led the way to the table.

There was something in Sarah's fluttering delight over the boy's
appearance that morning which awoke an almost hysterical impulse in her
brother. For he knew, as completely as though he had heard it from the
boy's own lips, that nothing in the world but the knowledge that "Miss
Sarah" wished it would have carried Steve through the ordeal of his
first appearance. They had a word together--Sarah and Caleb--after
breakfast.

"Did you ever see anything like him, Cal?" she demanded of her brother.
"Did you! Oh, I never dared hope he would look like that!"

Caleb pulled reflectively at his lower lip.

"I never did," he admitted. And then, offhandedly: "What--did he say
anything, last night, when you told him to wear those things, this
morning."

"Why, no," Miss Sarah laughed a little. "No. But he--Cal, he just sat
and looked at me, oh, so soberly, for the longest time. He