"I've got a pan in the oven," said Miss Lydia, "and I've got to watch 'em."

Mary was silent; she sat down by the table, her breath catching in her throat. Miss Lydia did not, apparently, notice the agitation; she bustled about and brought her a cooky on a cracked plate--and watched her.

"I want--" Mary said, in a trembling voice, and crumbling the cooky with nervous fingers--"I mean, I am going to have Johnny visit me this winter."

"Oh," said Miss Lydia, and sat down.

"I'll have him during the holidays."

"No."

"Why not?" Mary said, angrily.

"He'd guess."

"You needn't be afraid of _that_!"

Miss Lydia silently shook her head; instantly Mary's anger turned to fright.

"Oh, Miss Lydia--please! I promise you he shall never have the dimmest idea--why, he _couldn't_ have! It wouldn't do, you know. But I want him just to--to look at."

Miss Lydia was pale. She may have been a born gambler, but never had she taken such a chance as this--to give Johnny back, even for a week, to the people who once had thrown him away, but who now were ready to do everything for him, give him anything he wanted!--and a boy wants so many things! "No," she said, "no."

Mary gave a starved cry, then dropped on her knees, clutched at the small, rough, floury hand and tried to kiss it.

"A mother has a claim," she said, pa.s.sionately.

Miss Lydia, pulling her hand away, nodded. "Yes, a mother has."

"Then let him come. Oh, let him come!"

"_Are you his mother?_"

Mary fell back, half sitting on the floor, half kneeling at Miss Lydia's feet. "What do you mean? You know--"

"Sometimes," said Miss Lydia, "I think _I'm_ his mother."

Mary started. "She's crazy!" she thought, scared.

"He is mine," Miss Lydia said, proudly; "some foolish people have even thought he was mine in--in your way."

"Absurd!" Mary said, with a gasp.

"You have never understood love, Mary," Miss Lydia said; "never, from the very beginning." And even as Johnny's mother recoiled at that sword-thrust, she added, her face very white: "But I'll chance it. Yes, if he wants to visit you I'll let him. But I hope you won't hurt him."

"Hurt him? Hurt my own child? He shall have everything!"

"That's what I mean. It may hurt him. He may get to be like you," Miss Lydia said. . . . "Oh, my cookies! They are burning!" She pushed Johnny's mother aside--she wanted to push her over! to trample on her!

to tear her! But she only pressed her gently aside and ran and opened the oven door, and then said, "Oh _my_!" and raised a window to let the smoke out. . . . "I'll let him go," she said. But when Mary tried to put her arms around her, and say brokenly how grateful she was, Miss Lydia shrank away and said, harshly, "_Don't!_"

"I couldn't bear to have her touch me," she told herself afterward; "she didn't love him when he was a baby."

However, it was arranged, and the visit was made. It was a great experience for Johnny! The stage to Mercer, the railroad journey across the mountains, the handsome house, the good times every minute of every day! Barnum's! Candy shops! New clothes (and old ones dropped about on the floor for Mrs. Robertson to pick up!) And five five-dollar bills to carry back to Old Chester! Then the week ended. . . . Mrs. Robertson, running to bring him his hat and make sure he had a clean handkerchief, and patting the collar of his coat with plump fingers, cried when she said good-by; and Johnny sighed, and said he had a stomach ache, and he hated to go home. His mother glanced triumphantly at his father.

"(Do you hear that?) Do you love me, Johnny?" she demanded.

"Yes'm," Johnny said, scowling.

"As much as Miss Lydia?"

Johnny stared at her. "Course not."

"She doesn't give you so many presents as I do."

"_Mary!_" Johnny's father protested.

But Johnny was equal to the occasion.

"I'd just as leaves," said he, "give you one of my five dollars to pay for 'em"--which made even his mother laugh. "Goo'-by," said Johnny. "I guess I've eaten too much. I've had a fine time. Much obliged. No, I do'

want any more candy. O-o-o-h!" said Johnny, "I wish I hadn't eaten so much! I hate going home."

But he went--bearing his sheaves with him, his presents and his five five-dollar bills and his stomach ache. And he said he wished he could go right straight back to Philadelphia!

"Do you?" said Miss Lydia, faintly.

"But she's--funny, Aunt Lydia."

"How 'funny'?"

"Well," said Johnny, scrubbing the back of his hand across his cheeks, "she's always kissing me and talking about my liking her. Oh--I don't really mind her, much. She's nice enough. But I _don't_ like kissing ladies. But I like visiting her," he added, candidly; "she takes me to lots of places and gives me things. I like presents," said Johnny. "I hope she'll gimme a gun." . . .

That night, the kissing lady, pacing up and down like a caged creature in her handsome parlor, which seemed so empty and orderly now, said suddenly to her husband, "Why don't we adopt him?"

"H-s-s-h!" he cautioned her; then, in a low voice, "I've thought of that."

At which she instantly retreated. "It is out of the question! People would--think."

CHAPTER VI

JOHNNY would have had his gun right off, and many other things, too, if Miss Lydia hadn't interfered. "Please don't send him so many presents,"

she wrote Mrs. Robertson in her scared, determined way. And Mary, reading that letter, fed her bitterness with the memory of something which had happened during the visit.

"It's just what I said," she told Johnny's father; "she influences him against us by not letting us give him presents! I know that from the way he talks. I told him, after I bought the stereopticon for him, that I could give him nicer things than she could, and--"

"Mary! You mustn't say things like that!"