The most unthinking observer could scarcely have accused Mr. Hickey of "philandering" up to this point; inasmuch as he had not laid eyes on the object of his thoughts—he would have demurred at a stronger word—for upwards of a month. That same afternoon, however, he left his office at the unwarranted hour of two o'clock, bearing a milliner's box in his hand with unblushing gravity.

It was after he had rung the bell at the Stanford residence that he felt a fresh accession of doubt regarding the cerise plumes. After all, Brewster had neglected to put his mind at ease upon that important point.

Miss Tripp was at home, the maid informed him, and showed him at once into the drawing-room when Miss Tripp herself, charmingly gowned in old rose, presently came in to greet him.

Mr. Hickey caught himself gazing at the subdued tints of her toilet with vague disapproval. It was not, he told himself, a stunning colour such as was all the rage in Paris, New York and Boston. He felt exceedingly complacent as he thought of the plumes awaiting her acceptance.

"I wonder," Miss Tripp was saying brightly, "if you wouldn't like to see my little kindergarten? To tell you the truth, Mr. Hickey, I shouldn't venture to leave them to themselves, even to talk with you."

She led the way to the library where they were greeted by a chorus of joyous shouts.

"You see," exclaimed Miss Tripp, "I am entertaining all five of the children this afternoon. Elizabeth—Mrs. Brewster—wished to do some shopping, so I offered to keep an interested eye on her three wee lambkins."

"We're playin' birdies, Mr. Hickey," said Doris, taking up the thread of explanation, "Buddy and Baby Stanford are my little birdies; an' I'm the mother bird, an' Carroll an' Robbie are angleworms jus' crawlin' round on the ground. See me hop! Now I'm lookin' for a breakfast for my little birds!"

The two infants in a nest of sofa-pillows set up a loud chirping, while the angleworms writhed realistically on the hearth-rug.

"Now I'm goin' to catch one!" and Doris pounced upon Robbie Stanford. "Course I can't really put him down my birdies' throats," she explained kindly, "I just p'tend; like this."

"Aw—this isn't any fun," protested her victim, as she haled him sturdily across the floor. "You're pullin' my hair, anyway; leg-go, Doris; I ain't no really worm."

"You shouldn't say 'ain't,' dear," admonished Miss Tripp. "You meant to say 'I'm not really a worm.' But I'm sure you've played birdie long enough. We'll do something else now; what shall it be?"

"Let's play reg'lar tea-party with lots an' lots o' things to eat," suggested Master Stanford. "I'm hungry!"

"Oh, no, dear; not yet; you can't be," laughed Miss Tripp. "We'll have a tea-party, though, by and by, and you shall see what a nice surprise Cook Annie has for you."

"I like t' eat better 'n anything; don't you?" asked Doris, sidling up to the observant Mr. Hickey, who was watching the scene with an inscrutable smile. "I like to eat candy out of a big box."

"Doris, dear," interrupted Miss Tripp tactfully, "wouldn't you like to look at pictures a little while with the boys? Aunty Evelyn has some pretty books that you haven't seen. Come here, dear, and help Aunty."

"I'm tired o' pictures," objected Doris with a pout. "I want to play train, or somethin' like that; don't you, Robbie?"

"Don't want to play anythin' much; I'm tired o' bein' s' good, 'n' I'd rather go up in the attic, or somewhere," and Master Stanford cast a rebellious glance at his guardian.

"Why don't you let them go out doors for a while," suggested Mr. Hickey, coming unexpectedly to the rescue.

"It's snowing a little; and I'm afraid Elizabeth would think it was pretty cold for Richard," objected Miss Tripp.

"It'll do 'em good," insisted Mr. Hickey, who was selfishly determined to clear the decks for his own personal ends. He had somehow formulated a very surprising set of resolutions as he sat watching Miss Tripp in the discharge of her quasi maternal duties. Primus: It was a shame for a sweet, attractive little woman to wear herself out caring for other people's houses and children. Secundus: If there was another man in the case (as Brewster had insinuated) he was determined to find it out without further delay. Tertius: If not——. Mr. Hickey drew a long breath.

"Do you want to go out in the yard a little while?" Miss Tripp was asking the children doubtfully. "It is Norah's afternoon out," she explained to Mr. Hickey, "and I don't like to have them play out of doors unless someone is with them to see that nothing happens. It is such a responsibility," she added with a little sigh. "I had no idea of it when I undertook it; I'm afraid I shouldn't have had the courage to——. Oh, children; wait a minute! Let Aunty Evelyn put on your overshoes—Robbie, dear!"

"Come back here, young man!" commanded Mr. Hickey in a voice which effectually arrested the wandering attention of Master Stanford. "Here, I'll fix 'em up. If I can't, I'm not fit to put through another tunnel! Here you, Miss Flutterbudget; is this your coat?"

Miss Tripp flew to the rescue. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Hickey," she murmured, flashing a mirthful glance of protest at the engineer. "But to array four small children for out of doors on a winter day is vastly more complicated than digging a tunnel. Wait, Doris; you haven't your mittens."

They were all ready at last, and Evelyn herded them carefully out into the back yard and shut the latticed door leading to the street upon them.

"Now I must watch them every minute from the library window," she said to Mr. Hickey. "You've no idea what astonishing things they'll think of and—do. One ought to have the eyes of an Argus and the arms of a Briareus to cope successfully with Robert."

"Bright boy—very," observed Mr. Hickey absent-mindedly. "I—er—am very fond of boys."

"Oh, are you?" asked Evelyn with mild surprise, as she craned her neck to look out of the window. "I hope they won't make their snow-balls too hard. It is really dangerous when the snow is soft."

"—Er—I wish you'd stop looking out of that window, Miss Tripp and—er—give me your attention for about five minutes," said Mr. Hickey, with very much the same tone and manner he would have employed in addressing his stenographer. He told himself that he was perfectly cool and collected, but unluckily in his efforts to visualise his inward calm he succeeded in looking particularly stern and professional. "I—er—called on a little matter of business this afternoon, Miss Tripp, and I—to put it clearly before you—would like to recall to your mind the day—something like a month ago, when you—when I—er—met you and asked you to lunch with me. You may recall the fact?"

Miss Tripp gazed at Mr. Hickey with some astonishment. Then she blushed, wondering if he had found out that she had prevaricated in the matter of a previous engagement.

"I—remember; yes," she murmured.

"It was a great disappointment to me at the time," he went on. "I wanted to talk to you further. I wanted to—er—tell you——" He paused and stole a glance at the pretty worn profile she turned toward him, as she looked apprehensively out of the window.

"The children are—playing very prettily together," she said. "And, see, the sun has come out."

"You—er—have known me a long time," he said huskily. "Once you laughed at me because I was homely and—er—awkward, and since then——"

She interrupted him with a little murmur of protest. "I was hoping you had forgotten that," she said softly.

"I have never forgotten anything that you said or did," he declared, with the delightful though sudden conviction that this was strictly true. "It really is singular, when you come to think of it; but it's a fact. I don't know as I should have realised it though if I—if you——"

She started to her feet with a little cry of alarm. "Something has happened to Carroll!" she said. "I must go out and see."

He followed her distracted flight with the grim resolve not to be balked of his purpose.

"Oh! what is it?" she was asking wildly of the other children, who huddled crying about the small figure of Carroll which was flattened against the iron fence, emitting strange and dolorous sounds of woe.

"Aw—I tol' Carroll he didn't das' to put his tongue out on th' iron fence; an' he did it; an' now he's stuck to it, 'n' can't get away," explained Master Stanford with scientific accuracy. "I don't see why; do you?"

"Oh, you poor darling! What shall I do; can't you——"

"Ah-a-a-a!" howled the victim, writhing in misery.

"Hold on there, youngster!" shouted Mr. Hickey, whose experienced eye had taken in the situation at a glance. "Wait till I get some hot water; don't move, boys! Don't touch him, Evelyn!"

It was the work of several moments to successfully detach the rash experimenter from his uncomfortable proximity to the iron fence. But Mr. Hickey accomplished the feat, with a patience and firmness which won for him the loud encomiums of Mrs. Stanford's Irish Annie, who came out bare-armed to assist in the operation.

"Oh, you're the bad boy entirely!" she said to Robbie, who stared open-mouthed at the scene from the safe vantage ground of the back stoop. "Many's the time I've towld what would happen to yez if you put yer tongue t' th' fence in cowld weather."

"I wanted to see if it was true," said Master Stanford coolly. "You said th' was a p'liceman comin' after me, an' th' wasn't, when I ate the frostin' off your ol' cake."

"If your mother was here she'd be afther takin' th' paddle to yez," said Annie wrathfully. "I've a mind to do it meself."

Master Stanford fled to the safe shelter of the library where Carroll, ensconced on Mr. Hickey's knee, was being soothed with various emollients and lotions at the hands of Miss Tripp.

"I should never have known what to do," she said, looking up from her ministrations to find Mr. Hickey's eyes fixed full upon her. "How could you think so quickly?"

"Because I tried it myself once upon a time," said Mr. Hickey. "It's about the only way to learn things," he added somewhat grimly. "But I wish our young friend had taken another day for improving his knowledge on the subject of the prehensile powers of iron when applied to a moist surface on a cold day."

For some reason or other he felt very much neglected and correspondingly out of temper as Miss Tripp ministered to the numerous wants of her small charges during the half hour that followed. To be sure she poured him a cup of tea (which he detested) and pressed small frosted cakes upon him with the sweetest of abstracted smiles.

"I must go at once," he bethought himself, as he refused a second cup. "I—er—shall be late to my dinner." But he lingered gloomily while she cheered the afflicted Carroll with warm milk well sweetened with sugar.

"You'll find some—some feathers in a box in the hall," he informed her, when he finally took his leave. "I wanted to tell you that I—er—regretted exceedingly that I had injured yours with my umbrella on the day we were to have lunched together and—didn't."

Miss Tripp took the cerise plumes out of their wrappings and examined them in the blissful security of her own room—this after the Brewster children had gone home and the Stanford children were at last in bed and safely asleep.

"How-extraordinary!" she murmured, her cheeks reflecting palely the vivid tints of the latest importation from Paris.

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