the old house, for the library
rugs and curtains had found place there, with some of the best
pictures and ornaments. Down-stairs Philippa was standing in the
centre of the room, about to remove the cover and lamp from the
dining-room table.

"Now it is the parlour," she said, gaily, waving her hand toward the
old piano, the bookcases, and the familiar bric-a-brac on the mantel.
"But shut your eyes a minute, and--_abracadabra!_ it's the
dining-room." As she spoke, she whisked a white cloth on the old
claw-footed mahogany table, and, throwing open a closet door,
displayed the orderly rows of china.

"We'll not have much for supper to-night, but I'm bound it shall be
set out in style to celebrate our house-warming; so, Mack, if you
have any legs left to toddle on, I wish you'd run out and get me a
handful of purple asters to put in this glass bowl. I am glad that it
wasn't broken. Some kind but agitated friend pitched it out of the
window into the geranium bed."

She rattled along gaily, with a furtive side-glance at Alec. He had
had nothing to say to her since her outburst up-stairs, and now,
ignoring her pleasantries, he walked into the kitchen in his most
dignified manner.

"Is there anything more you want me to do, Aunt Eunice?" he asked.

Finding that there was nothing just then, he went out to the side
porch opening off the room which was to be used as both dining-room
and parlour. He had hung the hammock there a little while before, and
he threw himself into it with a sigh of relief. Swinging back and
forth in the shelter of the vines, the feeling of comfort began to
steal over him that comes with the relaxation of tired muscles. The
rattle of dishes and aroma of hot coffee coming out to him were
pleasantly suggestive to his healthy young appetite.

He closed his eyes, not intending to go to sleep, but the hammock
stopped swinging almost instantly, and he did not hear the footsteps
going past him a few minutes later, nor his Aunt Eunice's surprised
cry of welcome as a tall, bearded stranger knocked at the door.

The continuous murmur of voices finally roused him, and he lay there
blinking and listening, trying to recognize the deep bass voice that
laughed and talked so familiarly with his aunt.

"The Lord has certainly sent you, Dick," Alec heard her say in a
tremulous tone, and then he knew instantly who had come.

[Illustration: "'THE LORD HAS CERTAINLY SENT YOU, DICK.'"]

All his life he had heard o