so awful particular----!" For the more telling effect he left the sentence unfinished.

Again Margaret did not seem to hear. Again her eyes had sought the patch of blue showing through the green leaves.

"Dr. Spencer may be nice now, but he ain't a husband yet," she said, thoughtfully. "There was Tim Sullivan and Patty's father and Mike Whalen," she enumerated aloud. "And they was all---- Bobby, was your father a good husband?" she demanded with a sudden turn that brought her eyes squarely round to his.

The boy was silent.

"Bobby, was he?"

Slowly the boy's eyes fell.

"Well, of course, sometimes dad would"--he began; but Margaret interrupted him.

"I knew it--I just knew it--I just knew there wasn't any," she moaned; "but I can't make mother see it--I just can't!"

This was but the first of many talks between Margaret and Bobby upon the same subject, and always Margaret was seeking for a possible averting of the catastrophe. To convince her mother of the awfulness of the fate awaiting her, and so to persuade her to abandon the idea of marriage, was out of the question, Margaret soon found. It was then, perhaps, that the idea of speaking to the doctor himself first came to her.

"If I could only get him to promise things!" she said to Bobby. "If I could only get him to promise!"

"Promise?"

"Yes; to be good and kind, you know," nodded Margaret, "and not like a husband."

Bobby laughed; then he frowned and was silent. Suddenly his face changed.

"I say, you might make him sign a contract," he hazarded.

"Contract?"

"Sure! One of them things that makes folks toe the mark whether they wants to or not. I'll draw it up for you--that's what they call it," he explained airily; and as Margaret bubbled over with delight and thanks he added: "Not at all. 'Tain't nothin'. Glad ter do it, I'm sure!"

For a month now Bobby had swept the floor and dusted the books in the law office of Burt & Burt, to say nothing of running errands and tending door. In days gone by, the law, as represented by the policeman on the corner, was something to be avoided; but to-day, as represented by a frock coat, a tall hat, and a vocabulary bristling with big words, it was something that was most alluring--so alluring, in fact, that Bobby had determined to adopt it as his own. He himself would be a lawyer--tall hat, frock coat, big words and all. Hence his readiness to undertake this little matter of drawing up a contract for Margaret, his first client.

It was some days, nevertheless, before the work was ready for the doctor's signature. The young lawyer, unfortunately, could not give all of his time to his own affairs; there were still the trivial duties of his office to perform. He found, too, that the big words which fell so glibly from the lips of the great Burt & Burt were anything but easily managed when he tried to put them upon paper himself. Bobby was ambitious and persistent, however, and where knowledge failed, imagination stepped boldly to the front. In the end it was with no little pride that he displayed the result of his labor to his client, then, with her gleeful words of approval still ringing in his ears, he slipped it into its envelope, sealed, stamped, and posted it. Thus it happened that the next day a very much amazed physician received this in his mail:

_"To whom it may concern_:

"Whereas, I, the Undersigned, being in my sane Mind do intend to commit Matremony, I, the said Undersigned do hereby solumly declare and agree, to wit, not to Beat my aforesaid Wife. Not to Bang her round. Not to Falsely, Wickedly and Maliciously treat her. Not once.

Moreover, I, the said Undersigned do solumly Swear all this to Margaret Kendall, the dorter and Lawfull Protectur of the said Wife, to wit, Mrs. Kendall. And whereas, if I, the aforesaid Undersigned do break and violate this my solum Oath concerning the said Wife, I do hereby Swear that she, to wit, Margaret Kendall, may bestow upon me such Punishmunt as seems eminuntly proper to her at such time as she sees fit. Whereas and whereunto I have this day set my Hand and Seal."

Here followed a s.p.a.ce for the signature, and a somewhat thumbed, irregular daub of red sealing-wax.

CHAPTER V

It was a particularly warm July evening, but a faint breeze from the west stirred the leaves of the Crimson Rambler that climbed over the front veranda at Five Oaks, and brought the first relief from the scorching heat. The great stone lions loomed out of the shadows and caught the moonlight full on their s.h.a.ggy heads. To the doctor, sitting alone on the veranda steps, they seemed almost alive, and he smiled at the thought that came to him.

"So you think you, too, are guarding her," he chuckled quietly. "Pray, and are you also her 'Lawfull Protectur'?"

A light step sounded on the floor behind him, and he sprang to his feet.

"She's asleep," said Mrs. Kendall softly. "She dropped asleep almost as soon as she touched the pillow. Dear child!"

"Yes, children are apt---- Amy, dearest!" broke off the doctor, sharply, "you are crying!"

"No, no, it is nothing," a.s.sured Mrs. Kendall, as the doctor led her to a chair. "It is always this way, only to-night it was a--a little more heart-breaking than usual."

"'Always this way'! 'Heart-breaking'! Why, Amy!"

Mrs. Kendall smiled, then raised her hand to brush away a tear.

"You don't understand," she murmured. "It's the bedtime prayer--Margaret's;" then, at the doctor's amazed frown, she added: "The dear child goes over her whole day, bit by bit, and asks forgiveness for countless misdemeanors, and it nearly breaks my heart, for it shows how many times I have said 'don't' to the poor little thing since morning.

And as if that were not piteous enough, she must needs ask the dear Father to tell her how to handle her fork, and how to sit, walk, and talk so's to please mother. Harry, what _shall_ I do?"

"But you are doing," returned the doctor. "You are loving her, and you are surrounding her with everything good and beautiful."

"But I want to do right myself--just right."

"And you are doing just right, dear."

"But the results--they are so irregular and uneven," sighed the mother, despairingly. "One minute she is the gentle, loving little girl I held in my arms five years ago; and the next she is--well, she isn't Margaret at all."

"No," smiled the doctor. "She isn't Margaret at all. She is Mag of the Alley, dependent on her wits and her fists for life itself. Don't worry, sweetheart. It will all come right in time; it can't help it!--but it will take the time."

"She tries so hard--the little precious!--and she does love me."

A curious smile curved the doctor's lips.

"She does," he said dryly.

"Why, Harry, what----" Mrs. Kendall's eyes were questioning.

The doctor hesitated. Then very slowly he drew from his pocket a large, somewhat legal-looking doc.u.ment.

"I hardly know whether to share this with you or not," he began; "still, it _is_ too good to keep to myself, and it concerns you intimately; moreover, you may be able to a.s.sist me with some advice in the matter, or at least with some possible explanation." And he held out the paper.

Mrs. Kendall turned in her chair so that the light from the open hall-door would fall upon the round, cramped handwriting.

"'To whom it may concern,'" she read aloud. "'Whereas, I, the Undersigned, being in my sane Mind do intend to commit Matremony.' Why, Harry, what in the world is this?" she demanded.

"Go on,--read," returned the doctor, with a nonchalant wave of his hand; and Mrs. Kendall dropped her eyes again to the paper.

"Harry, what in the world does this mean?" she gasped a minute later as she finished reading, half laughing, half crying, and wholly amazed.

"But that is exactly what I was going to ask you," parried the doctor.