"He said he was glad, very glad. He has been willing, for a long time, that I should take a child--when I saw one I wanted. He naturally connects Ann with the Saxe Home; her being with you has strengthened this belief. I shall let it go at that--for a time, Betty."

"Yes. It is better so. After he learns to know and love the child,"

Betty mused, "the way will be opened. And oh! Lyn, Ann is so wonderful.

She has the most remarkable character--so deep and tenderly true for such a mite."

"Suppose, Betty--suppose Con notices the likeness!"

At this Betty smiled rea.s.suringly.

"He won't. Men are so stupidly humble. A pretty little girl would escape them every time."

"But her Southern accent, Betty. It is so p.r.o.nounced."

"My dear Lyn, it is! She sometimes talks like a little darkey; but to my certain knowledge there are ten small Southerners at the Saxe, of a.s.sorted ages and s.e.xes, waiting for adoption."

"And she may speak out, Betty. Her silence as to the past will disappear when she has got over her fear and longing."

Betty looked more serious. "I doubt it. Not a word has pa.s.sed her lips here--of her mother or home. It has amazed me. She's the most unusual, the most fascinating creature I ever saw, for her age. Brace is wild about her--he wants me to keep her. But, Lyn, if she does break her strange silence, it will be your big hour! Whatever Con is or isn't--and sometimes I feel like hugging him, and again, like shaking him--he's the tenderest man with women--not even excepting Brace--that I have ever seen. It never has occurred to him to reason out how much you love him--he's too busy loving you. But when he finds this out! Well, Lyn, it makes me bow my head and speak low."

"Don't, Betty! Don't suggest pedestals again," Lynda pleaded.

"No pedestal, Lyn; no pedestal--but the real, splendid _you_ revealed at last! And now--forget it, dear. Here comes lil' Ann."

The child tiptoed in with outstretched arms.

"The nest is made right soft," she whispered, "and now let me carry Bobilink to--to the sleepy dreams."

"Where did you learn to carry babies?" Betty hazarded, testing the silence. The small, dark face clouded; the fear-look crept to the large eyes.

"I--I don't know," was the only reply, and Ann turned away--this time toward Lynda!

"And suppose he never knows?" Lynda spoke with her lips pressed to Ann's soft hair--the child was in her arms.

"Then you and Con will have something to begin heaven with." Betty's eyes were wet. "We all have something we don't talk about much on earth--we do not dare. Brace and I have our--baby!"

Two days later Lynda took Ann home. They went shopping first and the child was dazzlingly excited. She forgot her restraint and shyness in the fascinating delirium of telling what she wanted with a pretty sure belief that she would get it. No wonder that she was taken out of herself and broke upon Truedale's astonished gaze as quite a different child from the one Lynda had described.

The brilliant little thing came into the hall with Lynda, her arms filled with packages too precious to be consigned to other hands; her eyes were dancing and her voice thrilling with happiness.

"And now I'll call you muvver-Lyn 'cause you're mighty kind and this is your house! It's a right fine house."

Truedale had well timed his return home. He was ready to greet the two in the library. The prattling voice charmed him with its delightful mellowness and he went forward gladly to meet Lynda and the new little child. Ann was ahead; Lynda fell back and, with fast-throbbing heart waited by the doorway.

Ann had had a week and more of Brace Kendall to wipe away the impression Burke Lawson had imprinted upon her mind. But she was shy of men and weighed them carefully before showing favours. She stood still when she saw Truedale; she dropped, unheeded, a package; she stared at him, while he waited with extended hands. Then slowly--as if drawn against her will--Ann advanced and laid her hands in his.

"So this is the little girl who has come to help us make Christmas?"

"Yes." Still that fixed look. It seemed to Lynda the most unnatural thing she had ever seen. And oh! how alike the two were, now that they were together!

"You are little Ann and you are going to play with"--Truedale looked toward Lynda and drew her to him by the love in his eyes--"You are going to play with us, and you will call us mother and father, won't you, little Ann?" He meant to do his part in full. He would withhold nothing, now that Lynda had decided to take this step.

"Yes."

"And do you suppose you could kiss me--to begin with?"

Quaintly the child lifted herself on her toes--Truedale was half kneeling before her--and gave him a lingering kiss.

"We're going to be great friends, eh, little Ann?" Truedale was pleased, Lynda saw that. The little girl was making a deep impression.

"Yes." Then--deliberately: "Shall I have to teach you to be a father?"

"What does she mean?" Truedale looked at Lynda who explained Betty's charming foolery.

"I see. Well, yes, Ann, you must teach me to be a father."

And so they began their lives together. And after a few days Lynda saw that during the child's stay with Betty the crust of sullen reserve had departed--the little creature was the merriest, sweetest thing imaginable, once she could forget herself. Protected, cared for, and considered, she developed marvellously and soon seemed to have been with them years instead of days. The impression was almost startling and both Lynda and Truedale remarked upon it.

"There are certain things she does that appear always to have been waiting for her to do," Conning said, "it makes her very charming. She brushes the dogs and cats regularly, and she's begun to pick up books and papers in my den in a most alarming way--but she always manages to know where they belong."

"That's uncanny," Lynda ventured; "but she certainly has fitted in, bless her heart!"

There had been moments at first when Lynda feared that Thomas would remember the child, but the old eyes could hardly be expected to recognize, in the dainty little girl, the small, patched, and soiled stranger of the annoying visit. Many times had Thomas explained and apologized for the admittance of the two "forlornities," as he called them.

No, everything seemed mercifully blurred; and Ann, in her new home, apparently forgot everything that lay behind her. She never even asked to go back to Betty's though she welcomed Betty, Brace, and Bobbie with flattering joy whenever they came to visit. She learned to be very fond of Lynda--was often sweetly affectionate with her; but in the wonderful home, her very own, waited upon and cared for, it was Conning who most appealed to her. For him she watched and waited at the close of day, and if she were out with Lynda she became nervous and worried if they were delayed as darkness crept on.

"I want father to see me waiting," she would urge; "I like to see his gladness."

"And so do I!" Lynda would say, struggling to overcome the unworthy resentment that occasionally got the better of her when the child too fervently appropriated Conning.

But this trait of Ann's flattered and delighted Truedale; often he was amused, but he knew that it was the one thing above all else in the little girl that endeared her to him.

"What a darling she is!" he often said to Lynda when they were alone together. "Is she ever naughty?"

"Yes, often--the monkey!"

"I'm glad to hear it. I hate a flabby youngster. Does she ever speak of her little past, Lyn?"

"Never."

"Isn't that strange?"

"Yes, but I'm glad she doesn't. I want her to forget. She's very happy with us--but she's far from perfect." "To what form of cussedness does she tend, Lyn? With me she's as lamblike as can be."

"Oh! she has a fiery temper and, now that I think of it, she generally shows it in reference to you."

"To me?" Truedale smiled.

"Yes. Thomas found her blacking your shoes the other day. She was making an awful mess of it and he tried to take them from her. She gave him a real vicious whack with the brush. What she said was actually comical: 'He's mine; if I want to take the dirt from his shoes, I can. He _shan't_ walk on dirt--and he's mine!'"