Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/203

 have me here? Any sort of room would do for me, and I'd promise to make as little trouble as possible. I've taken the greatest fancy to Poppet, and to the place, and I should be as happy as a cricket in any corner you could give me. Besides, Mr. Barnard being a friend of Sir Ian Hereward's, you might both feel as though in a way you were helping the police on in their search for the murderer, if you allowed one of them to do his duty from your house. I should have some good games with little Miss Poppet here, in my spare moments."

Rose was completely taken aback, and Tom would have refused at once, if Poppet had not flown to the young man, and nestled between his knees.

"Oh, shouldn't I love to have you live in our house!" she exclaimed. "You'd play with me, and tell me stories, wouldn't you?"

That I would; and I know some grand stories, too," Gaylor boasted. "Mrs. Barnard, do say 'yes.'"

And somehow, Rose did eventually say "yes," why, she hardly knew, any more than Tom knew why he did not object to the decision. The young man certainly had a way with him!

That same evening, the detective became a member of the Barnard's family circle. His "corner" was a pleasant, oak-beamed room, with dimity-curtained, diamond-paned windows. His meals he took with the Barnards, and was so gay and good-natured that