s, or they looked fresh to him,
at her windows, and smashed a perfectly good thumb-nail in doing so.
This and many other abominable duties he performed. But love means
suffering, and every pang gave Old Tom a thrill of fierce delight
for--"Bob" was coming. The lonely, hungry, aching wait was over.

Constant familiarity with the house had mercifully dulled the
occupant's appreciation of its natural deterioration and the effects of
his neglect, so when he finally straightened his aching back and
regarded the results of his heroic efforts, it seemed to him that
everything shone like new and that the place was as neat and as clean
as on the day "Bob" went away. Probably Hercules thought the Augean
stables were spotless and fragrant when he had finished with them. And
perhaps they were, but Tom Parker was no demigod. He was just a clumsy
old man, unaccustomed to indoor "doings," and his eyes at times during
the last few days had been unaccountably dim--as, for instance, while
he was at work in Barbara's chamber.

He did not sleep much on the night before the girl's arrival. He sat
until late with the framed photograph of Barbara's mother on his knee,
and tried to tell the dead and gone original that he had done his best
for the girl so far, and if he had failed, it was because he knew
nothing about raising girls and--nature hadn't cut him out to be a
father, anyhow. He had been considerably older than Barbara's mother
when he married her, and he had never ceased to wonder what there had
been in him to win the love of a woman like her, or to regret that fate
had not taken him instead of her. Heaven knows his calling had been
risky enough. But--that was how things went sometimes--the wheat was
taken and the chaff remained.

And in the morning! Tom was up before daylight and had his dishes
washed and his things in order long ere the town was awake. Then he
went down to the office and waited--with the jumps. Repeatedly he
consulted his heavy gold watch, engraved: "With the admiration and
gratitude of the citizens of Burlingame. November fifth, 1892." It was
still two hours of train time when he locked up and limped off toward
the station, but--it was well to be there early.

Of course he met Judge Halloran on the street--he always did--and of
course the judge asked when "Bob" was coming home. The judge always did
that, too. Old Tom had lied diligently to the judge every day for a
month now, for he had no intention of sharing