ask
her if she were happy, Peter did not speak until he had deliberately
crushed out the last spark from his stub and thrown it into the fire.
The ceremony over, he held out his arms to her and she slipped into
them as if that moment were the one she had been waiting for ever
since the white morning looked into the window of the lavender
dressing-room on Morningside Heights, and found her awake and quite
cold with the excitement of thinking of what the day was to bring
forth.

"Eleanor," Peter said, when he was sure she was comfortably arranged
with her head on his shoulder, "Eleanor, I want you to feel at home
while you are here, really at home, as if you hadn't any other home,
and you and I belonged to each other. I'm almost too young to be your
father, but--"

"Oh! are you?" Eleanor asked fervently, as he paused.

"--But I can come pretty near feeling like a father to you if it's a
father you want. I lost my own father when I was a little older than
you are now, but I had my dear mother and sister left, and so I don't
know what it's like to be all alone in the world, and I can't always
understand exactly how you feel, but you must always remember that I
want to understand and that I will understand if you tell me. Will you
remember that, Eleanor?"

"Yes, Uncle Peter," she said soberly; then perhaps for the first time
since her babyhood she volunteered a caress that was not purely
maternal in its nature. She put up a shy hand to the cheek so close to
her own and patted it earnestly. "Of course I've got my grandfather
and grandmother," she argued, "but they're very old, and not very
affectionate, either. Then I have all these new aunts and uncles
pretending," she was penetrating to the core of the matter, Peter
realized, "that they're just as good as parents. Of course, they're
just as good as they can be and they take so much trouble that it
mortifies me, but it isn't just the same thing, Uncle Peter!"

"I know," Peter said, "I know, dear, but you must remember we mean
well."

"I don't mean you; it isn't you that I think of when I think about my
co--co-woperative parents, and it isn't any of them specially,--it's
just the idea of--of visiting around, and being laughed at, and not
really belonging to anybody."

Peter's arms tightened about her.

"Oh! but you do belong, you do belong. You belong to me, Eleanor."

"That was what I hoped you would say, Uncle Peter," she whispered.

They had a long talk afte