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16 and help with their bags!" They pushed by me; and a minute after, everybody was in a confused bunch in the vestibule—Oliver and Malcolm with the suitcases, Father and Alec, Ruthie hanging on to my skirt, and finally Tom, big and handsome and natural!

"Hello, Bobbie, old girl," he said. "Hello, little Ruthiemus!" And suddenly behind him Elise appeared—tall, pale as a lily, quiet, and very calm. "Well, here they all are, Elise," Tom went on lustily, "Malcolm and Oliver, and Bobbie who is the mother of us, and Ruthiemus the baby."

Elise came forward, shook hands with the boys, and when she came to me she kissed me. I'd never been so near such a perfectly gorgeous Irish-lace jabot in my life. After she had leaned down and kissed Ruth she said in the quietest, lowest voice I ever heard, while we all stared, "I know you all, already, for Chenery has told me all about you."

Chenery! How perfectly absurd! No one ever calls Tom anything but just plain Tom. We all have Chenery for a middle name—it was mother's before she was married—but it is only to sign. After that remark about Chenery the silence was simply deathly, but Alec, who always comes to the rescue, exclaimed, "Don't you people intend to stop with us to-night? Usher us in, Bobbie."

There was none of the Vars hail-fellow-well-met, slap-you-on-the-back spirit about that evening. We all distributed ourselves in a circle about the sitting-room, exactly like a Bible-class at church, and talked in the stiffest, most formal way imaginable. I don't know why we couldn't be natural; but Elise, sitting