his little joke, he
made the long-delayed cup of tea, and, though both were too excited
to eat, they sat down together to their breakfast.

CHAPTER II.

JESSIE ARRIVES.

Unwell though she had been, Mrs. Dawson would not let her husband do
a single thing indoors to help her in preparation for the little
newcomer.

"No. Men is only in the way," she said decidedly. "I shall get on
twice as fast if you leave me the place to myself." So, knowing that
she meant what she said, Thomas went out and set to work in the
garden, for, of course, that must be made trim, too, for the little
five-year-old grandchild. He forked over the earth in all the beds,
tied up to a stick every daffodil that did not stand perfectly
upright by itself, trimmed the sweetbriar hedge, and swept the paths.

"If I'd got the time," he called in to Patience, "I would give the
gate a coat of paint."

"I wish you could," she called back, "and the front door, too, it'd
be the better for it. To a stranger, I dare say it'll look shabby."

Evidently they expected the new-comer to be a very critical little
person.

"I can whitewash the back porch," thought Thomas, "and I'll do it
without saying anything to mother. It will be a bit of a surprise to
her."

But while he was putting on the last brushful or two, a thought came
to him which sent him hurrying into the house in quite a flurry.

"Mother!" he called up the stairs, "mother! we don't know when she's
coming, Lizzie didn't say--and what's to prevent her coming to-day?"

Patience dropped her scrubbing-brush and sat down on the top stair,
overcome with excitement and surprise. "To-day! this very day!
Oh dear! oh dear! how careless of Lizzie not to tell us! The poor
child might come at any time, and nobody be there to meet her, and we
can't write and ask, for she didn't give us any address to write to.
Lizzie did use to have some sense before she took up with that Harry
Lang, but now--"

Patience lapsed into silence because she could not find words which
would sufficiently express her feelings. She was tired and irritable
too, and she never could endure uncertainty.

Thomas had been standing by all this while, thinking deeply.
"Well," he said at last, "it's my belief she'd send her off as soon
as she could after she'd wrote the letter, for if Lizzie had a hard
thing to do, she was one as couldn't stop to think much about it, or
she'd never do it at all. She's put London on the to