hed in relief. At that
moment Tilly came into the garden.

What a dear little woman those two weeks of happiness had caused Tilly
to become! How much she loved Tommy, and what care she took of him!
Really, it was a shame to separate them--they ought to be brought up
together--perhaps Mr. Wentworth would n't find any child that he
wanted; anyway, she believed she should send Tilly in, at a venture.

A moment later Tilly was following in Tommy's footsteps. On the piazza
steps sat Bobby--homely, unattractive Bobby, crying.

"Why, my dear!" remonstrated Mrs. Wentworth.

"Tommy's gone! I can't find him," sobbed the boy.

Mrs. Wentworth's back straightened.

Of course Bobby cried--no one was so good to him as Tommy was--no one
seemed to care for him but Tommy. Poor, homely Bobby! He had a hard
row to hoe. He--

But she could n't take Bobby! Of course not--she had Tommy and Tilly
already. Still--

Mrs. Wentworth stooped and whispered a magic word in Bobby's ear, and
the boy sprang to his feet and trotted through the hall to the parlor
door.

"I don't care," muttered Mrs. Wentworth recklessly. "I could n't bear
to leave him alone out here. I can settle it later."

Twice she had evaded her husband during the last fifteen minutes; now,
at nine o'clock, the appointed time, they both reached the parlor door.
Neither one could meet the other's eyes, and with averted faces they
entered the room together; then both gave a cry of amazement.

In the corner, stiff, uncomfortable, and with faces that expressed
puzzled anxiety, sat five silent children.

Mrs. Wentworth was the first to recover presence of mind.

"There, there, dears, it's all right," she began a little hysterically.
"You can call it a little game we were playing. You may all run
outdoors now."

As the last white apron fluttered through the door she dropped limply
into a chair.

"James, what in the world are we going to do?" she demanded.

"Give it up!" said the man, his hands in his pockets--James Wentworth's
vocabulary had grown twenty years younger in the last two weeks.

"But really, it's serious!"

"It certainly is."

"But what _shall_ we do?"

The man took his hands from his pockets and waved them in a manner that
would indicate entire irresponsibility.

"We might end it as we did two weeks ago and keep the whole lot of
them," she proposed merrily.

"Well--why don't you?" he asked calmly.

"James!"

His face grew red with a