ter frowned over it in bewilderment.

Peggy said, "Girls are silly things. And I suppose the way one's been
brought up counts, and what one's inherited, and all that."

"Well, if Rhoda'd taken after Mrs. Johnson she wouldn't have liked
Vyvian. He used to give her the creeps, like a toad. She told me so.
She disliked him more than I did.... Well, I shall never understand. I
suppose if I could Rhoda would have found me more sympathetic, and might
have stayed."

"Now, darling, you're not to sit up and brood any more; that won't help.
You're coming straight back with me to dinner, and Tommy's coming too, to
sleep. I shall ask Mrs. Adams to help me get his things together."

"He hasn't many things," said Peter, looking vaguely round for them. "I
got him a rattle and a ball, but he doesn't seem to care about them much;
Lucy says he's not young enough yet. Here's his bottle. And his night
clothes are upstairs, and his other day clothes, and his bath. Thomas
leads the simple life, though; he really possesses very little; I think
he's probably going to be a Franciscan later on. But he can sleep with me
here all right; I should like to have him; only it would be awfully good
of you if you'd have him to-morrow, while I'm out at work. But in the
night he and I rather like each other's company."

"Rubbish," said Peggy. "You're both coming along to fifty-one this
minute. You don't suppose I'm going to leave you two infants alone
together like that. We've heaps of room at fifty-one"--she sighed a
little--"people have been fading away like the flowers of the forest,
and we should be thankful to have you back."

"Oh, we'll come then; thanks very much, Peggy." Peter's ready
sympathy was turned on again, having temporarily been available only
for himself and Rhoda and Thomas. He remembered now that Peggy and Hilary
needed it too. He and Thomas would go and be boarders in the emptying
boarding-house; it might amuse Thomas, perhaps, to see the other
boarders.

"And we'll have him baptized," went on Peggy, thinking of further
diversions for Thomas and Peter. "You'll let him be a Catholic, Peter,
won't you?"

"Thomas," said Peter, "can be anything he likes that's nice. As long as
he's not a bigot. I won't have him refusing to go into one sort of church
because he prefers another; he mustn't ever acquire the rejecting habit.
Short of that, he may enter any denomination or denominations he
prefers."

They were collecting Thomas's bel