gure, gaining definiteness now with each step toward them.
"It doesn't walk like him," Penelope commented, her face already
showing that she knew it was not he. But the mother hung a little
longer to her hope. "No, it isn't Felix," she presently acquiesced,
disappointment evident in her gentle tones. "I so hoped it was, at
first."

With a firm, rapid stride the young man was coming eagerly up the
street, his eyes upon their house. "He doesn't walk at all like
Felix," Penelope repeated thoughtfully as his figure became more
plainly visible through the veiling snow, "but it's curious how much
like him he looks, after all."

"See, Penelope!" the mother exclaimed, reaching out to grasp her
daughter's hand in sudden enthusiasm. "See how he comes out of the
snow mist! Isn't it just like a figure in a dream getting plainer and
clearer, and more like life!"

Penelope pressed her mother's hand and smiled up at her fondly. "Just
like you, mother, to make something pretty out of a disappointment!"

They gazed at the advancing figure with renewed interest and saw that
the man, with slightly slackened pace, seemed to be closely observing
their house and yard. What he saw was a one-story red cottage, needing
paint, its green window shutters looking old and somewhat dilapidated,
its yard, of ample size and dotted with trees and shrubbery,
surrounded by a wooden fence in whose palings were occasional breaks
and patches. It was a commonplace object in an ordinary winter scene,
but he seemed to feel in it the deepest interest. There was even a
frown on his brow as his alert glance rested on a broken pane in the
kitchen window.

"It has been a long time since Felix was here--six months, hasn't it,
mother?" said Penelope, leaning back wearily again as the stranger
passed from her range of vision.

"Hardly so long as that, dear. It was last fall. But, of course, he is
very busy. He hasn't the time to travel around now and go visiting,
even over here to see us, that he used to have, before he had begun
to be so successful. We mustn't expect too much." As she spoke, her
gentle tones as full of indulgence and excuse as her words, she moved
to the front window and sought the figure of the stranger, now
striding along the snow-covered sidewalk in front of her own yard.

"Penelope! He's coming here!" she exclaimed, starting back and
dropping the muslin curtain she had pushed aside. "He's turning in at
our gate! He does look like Felix--a