he
Carolan temper in the nine years we've been married!"

"Exactly. Besides, it's not a temper--just strong will."

"Sidney has WILL enough," mused Jean.

"Oh, all men have," said the doctor's wife contentedly. "Billy, now! He
won't STAND a locked door. One night--I never shall forget!--the
children locked themselves in the nursery, and Will simply burst the
door in. Nobody makes a fuss or worries over THAT!"

If the illustration was beside the point, neither woman perceived it.

"There, you see!" said Jean, glad to be quite sure of conviction. "It
never really worries me," she added, after a moment, "for Peter adores
his father, and is only too eager to obey him. If Peter--and it's
impossible!--ever DID really work himself up to disobedience, why, I
suppose he'd get a thrashing,"--she made a wry face,--"and they'd love
each other all the more for it."

"Of course they would," agreed the other cheerfully.

"There must have been some way in which Madam Carolan could have
managed them," pursued Jean, thoughtfully. "The women of that
generation were a poor-spirited lot, I imagine. One isn't quite a
child!" There was another little pause in the hot murmuring silence of
the garden, and then, with a sudden change of manner, she rose to her
feet. "Mary! come and meet Sidney and the kiddy!" she commanded.

"Well, I rather hoped you were going to present them," said Mrs. Moore,
rising too, and gathering up sunshade and gloves.

They threaded the silent garden paths again, passed the house, and
crossed a neglected stable yard, where a great red motor-car had
crushed a path for itself across dry grass and weeds. In the stable
itself they found Sidney Carolan, the little Peter, and a couple of
servants--the chauffeur with oily hands, and the wrinkled old Italian
maid, very gay in scarlet gown and headdress.

Jean's husband had all the Carolan beauty and charm, and was his most
gracious and radiant self to-day. His sunny cordiality gave Mary no
chance to remember that she had a little feared the writer and critic.
But, after the first moment, her eye was irresistibly drawn to the
child.

Tawny-haired, erect, and astonishing in the perfection of his childish
beauty, Peter Carolan advanced her a bronzed, firm little hand, and
gave her with it a smile that seemed all brilliant color--white teeth,
ocean-blue eyes, and poppied cheeks. His square little figure was very
boyish in the thin silk shirt and baggy knickerbockers, a