"Really?" returned his daughter-in-law languidly. "For how long I wonder?"

"He thinks it is permanent."

"He is still in Chicago?"

"Yes, for a day or two. He and his wife sail for Europe immediately."

"Indeed!" with a greater show of interest. Then, curiously, "Are you sending them, father?"

"Scarcely! They are going on business."

"Oh," relapsing into indifference. "They have a child, I believe."

"Yes, a girl. I should think perhaps you might have remembered it."

"I hardly see why, if Harry didn't--a fact he plainly showed by deserting the poor creature." The insolence of the speaker's tone was scarcely veiled. Her extreme disapproval of her father-in-law sometimes welled to the surface of her suave manner.

Mr. Evringham's thoughts had fled to Chicago. "Harry proposed leaving the girl here while they are gone," he said.

Mrs. Evringham straightened in her chair and her attention concentrated.

"With you? What a.s.surance! How like Harry!" she exclaimed.

The words were precisely those which her host had been saying to himself; but proceeding from her lips they had a strange effect upon him.

"You find it so?" he asked. The clearer the proposition became to Mrs.

Evringham's consciousness the more she resented it. To have the child in the house not only would menace her ease and comfort, but meant a possibility that the grandfather might take an interest in Harry's daughter which would disturb Eloise's chances.

"Of course it does. I call it simply presumptuous," she declared with emphasis.

"After all, Harry has some rights," rejoined Mr. Evringham slowly.

"His wife is a dressmaker," went on the other. "I had it directly from a Chicago friend. Harry has scarcely been with the child since she was born. And to saddle a little stranger like that on you! Now Eloise and _her_ father were inseparable."

There was an ominous glitter in Mr. Evringham's eyes. "Eloise's father!"

he returned slowly. "I did not know that she remembered him."

The hurt of his tone and words sank deep into the heart of the girl, but she looked up courageously.

"Your son was my father in every best sense," she said. "We were inseparable. You must have known it."

"You appeared to be separable when your father made his visits to Bel-Air Park," was the rejoinder. "Pardon me if I knew very little of what took place in his household. A telegraph blank, please, Mrs.

Forbes, and tell Zeke to be ready to go to the office."

There was a vital tone in the usually dry voice. Mrs. Evringham looked apprehensively at her daughter; but Eloise gave her no answering glance; her eyes were downcast and her pretense of eating continued, while her pulses beat.

CHAPTER IV

FATHER AND SON

When later they were alone, the girl looked at her mother, her eyes luminous.

"You see," she began rather breathlessly, "even you must see, he is beginning to drive us away."

"I do hope, Eloise, you are not going to indulge in any heroics over this affair," returned Mrs. Evringham, who had braced herself to meet an attack. "Does the unpleasant creature suppose we would stay with him if we were not obliged to?"

"If we are obliged to, which I don't admit, need you demand further favors than food and shelter? How could you speak of Ess.e.x Maid! How can you know in your inmost heart, as you do, that we are eating the bread of charity, and then ask for the apple of his eye!" exclaimed Eloise desperately.

"Go away with your bread and apples," responded Mrs. Evringham flippantly. "I have a real worry now that that wretched little cousin of yours is coming."

"She is not my cousin please remember," responded the girl bitterly.

"Mr. Evringham reminded us of that to-night."

"Now don't you begin calling him Mr. Evringham!" protested her mother.

"You don't want to take any notice of the man's absurdities. You will only make matters worse."

"No, I shall go on saying grandfather for the little while we stay.

Otherwise, he would know his words were rankling. It _will_ be a little while? Oh mother!"

Mrs. Evringham pushed the pleading hand away. "I can't tell how long it will be!" she returned impatiently. "We are simply helpless until your father's affairs are settled. I thought I had told you that, Eloise.

He worshipped you, child, and no matter what that old curmudgeon says, Lawrence would wish us to remain under his protection until we see our way clear."

"Won't you have a business talk with him, so we can know what we have to look forward to?" The girl's voice was unsteady.

"I will when the right time comes, Eloise. Can't you trust your mother?

Isn't it enough that we have lost our home, our carriages, all our comforts and luxuries, through this man's bad judgment--"

"You will cling to that!" despairingly.

"And have had to come out to this Sleepy Hollow of a place, where life means mere existence, and be so poor that the carfare into New York is actually a consideration! I'm quite satisfied with our martyrdom as it is, without pinching and grinding as we should have to do to live elsewhere."

"Then you don't mean to attempt to escape?" returned Eloise in alarm.

"Hush, hush, Goosie. We will escape all in good time if we don't succeed in taming the bear. As it is, I have to work single handed," dropping into a tone of reproach. "You are no help at all. You might as well be a simpering wax dummy out of a shop window. I would have been ashamed at your age if I could not have subjugated any man alive. We might have had him at our feet weeks ago if you had made an effort."

"No, no, mother," sadly. "I saw when we first came how effusiveness impressed him, and I tried to behave so as to strike a balance--that is, after I found that we were here on sufferance and not as welcome guests."

"Pshaw! You can't tell what such a hermit is thinking," returned Mrs.

Evringham. "It is the best thing that could happen to him to have us here. Dr. Ballard said so only to-day. What is troubling me now is this child of Harry's. I was sure by father's tone when he first spoke of her that he would not even consider such an imposition."

"I think he did feel so," returned Eloise, her manner quiet again. "That was an example of the way you overreach yourself. The word presumption on your lips applied to uncle Harry determined grandfather to let the child come."

"You think he really has sent for her then!" exclaimed Mrs. Evringham.

"You think that is what the telegram meant! I'm sure of it, too." Then after a minute's exasperated thought, "I believe you are right. He is just contrary enough for that. If I had urged him to let the little barbarian come, he couldn't have been induced to do so. That wasn't clever of me!" The speaker made the admission in a tone which implied that in general her cleverness was unquestioned. "Well, I hope she will worry him out of his senses, and I don't think there is much doubt of it. It may turn out all for the best, Eloise, after all, and lead him to appreciate us." Mrs. Evringham cast a glance at the mirror and patted her waved hair. "And yet I'm anxious, very anxious. He might take a fancy to the girl," she added thoughtfully.

"I'm such a poor-spirited creature," remarked Eloise.

"What now?"