All that Evelyn Tripp had said to Elizabeth was entirely true; her feelings had been hurt—outraged, she again assured herself, as she hurried away, her eyes blurred with tears of anger and self-pity. Yet deep down in her heart she felt sure that George Hickey loved her for herself alone, and that all was not over between them. She had refused him, to be sure, and in no uncertain terms; but that he was not a man to be daunted by difficulties, she remembered with a little thrill of satisfaction. All had not been said when their interview was terminated by the unlooked-for arrival of the Stanfords; and he had said at parting, "I must see you again—soon. I wish to—explain. I will come to-morrow."

He would come; she was sure of it, and as she pictured his vexed astonishment at finding her already gone, her eyes filled with fresh tears. "He doesn't even know my Dorchester address," she murmured with inconsistent regret. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not hear a masterful step on the sidewalk behind her; but at the sound of his voice she glanced up without the least surprise. It appeared to Evelyn that Mr. Hickey's presence at that particular instant was in full accord with the verities.

"I was afraid you might be leaving early," he said directly, his eyes searching her face with an open anxiety that filled her with a warm delight. "I—er—found that I could not apply myself to business as I should this morning, so I thought best to—er—see you without delay."

Evelyn's head dropped; a faint smile flitted about her lips.

"Indeed, I am just leaving this afternoon," she said, in a voice that trembled a little in spite of her efforts to preserve an easy society manner.

"And you were going without—letting me know," said Mr. Hickey, in the tone of one who derives an unpleasant deduction from an undeniable fact. He looked down at her suddenly. "Did you, or did you not intend giving me the chance to—er—continue our conversation of last evening?" he asked with delightful sternness.

She was sure now that he loved her; but her day had been long in coming and she could not resist the temptation to enjoy it slowly, lingeringly, as one tastes an anticipated feast.

"I thought," she murmured indistinctly, "that there was nothing more to—say." She was deliciously frightened by the look that came into his deep-set eyes.

"I asked you to marry me," he said deliberately, "and you—refused. I want to know your reasons. I must know them. I am not in the habit of giving up what I want, easily," he went on, his brows meeting in a short-sighted frown, which raised Evelyn to the seventh heaven of anticipated bliss. "I've always gotten what I wanted—sooner or later. I want—you, Evelyn, and—and it's getting late. I'm forty-two, and you——"

She blushed resentfully, for at that moment she felt twenty, no older. Nevertheless, something in her downcast face must have encouraged him.

"Won't you take pity on me, dear?" he entreated. "I'm old and ugly to look at, I know; but I want you, Evelyn."

She would have answered him then; the words trembled upon her lips.

"Aunty Evelyn! Aunty Evelyn!"

The two shrill little voices upraised in urgent unison pierced the confused maze of her thoughts. She looked around, not without a wilful sense of relief to see the two older Brewster children running toward her brandishing a muff, which she presently recognised as one of her own cherished possessions, un-missed as yet since her brief visit with Elizabeth.

"Mother found it on the floor after you'd gone, an' she said for us to run after you an' give it to you," Carroll began, with a large sense of his own importance. "Doris wanted to carry it; but I was 'fraid she'd drop it in the wet. I didn't drop it, Aunty Evelyn; but Doris threw some snow at me, an' it got on the muff, an' I stopped to brush it off. I thought we'd never catch up."

Doris had snuggled her small person between Mr. Hickey and Miss Tripp, where she appropriated a hand of each in a friendly and impartial way.

"I guess girls know how to carry muffs better'n boys," she observed calmly. "Carroll was too fresh; that is why I threw snow at him."

"Why, Doris dear, where did you ever learn such an expression?" murmured Miss Tripp, vaguely reproving.

Doris gazed up at her mentor with an expression of preternatural intelligence.

"Why, don't you know," she explained; "folks is too fresh when they make you mad, an' make you cry. Who made you cry, Aunty Evelyn? Did Mr. Hickey?"

"I wish you'd find out for me, Doris," said that gentleman gloomily. "I'd give anything to know."

Miss Tripp gazed about her with gentle distraction, as if in search of an entirely suitable remark with which to continue the difficult conversation. Finding no inspiration in the expanse of slushy street, or in the dull houses which bordered it on either side, she turned bravely to Mr. Hickey.

"I think," she said in a low voice, "that the children really ought to go home to—to—their luncheon."

Her eyes (quite unknown to herself) held an appeal which filled him with unreasoning satisfaction.

"You are entirely right," he agreed joyfully; "the children should go home immediately. They must be in need of food. Go home, children, at once. You are hungry—very hungry."

"Oh, no, we're not," warbled Doris. "An' we like to walk with you an' Aunty Evelyn. Mother said our lunch wouldn't be ready for fifteen minutes. We won't have to go home for quite a while yet."

At this Mr. Hickey laughed, more loudly than the humour of the situation appeared to demand. "Very good," he said firmly; "that being the case, I'll say at once what I had in mind without further delay; for I'm anxious to let the whole world know that I love you, Evelyn, and I hope you'll allow me to go on loving you as long as I live."

The events which followed immediately upon this bold statement Elizabeth learned as a result of her somewhat bewildered questionings, when her two children, breathless and excited from a competitive return, flung their small persons upon her at their own door.

"Now you just let me tell, Carroll Brewster, 'cause I got here first; Aunty Evelyn said——"

"We gave Aunty Evelyn her muff," said Carroll, taking unfair advantage of Doris' breathless condition. "And what do you think, mother, Doris said I was too fresh to Aunty Evelyn, and she said——"

"Aunty Evelyn cried when we gave her the muff, an' she said——"

"Aunty Evelyn didn't cry 'cause we gave her the muff," interpolated Carroll, with superior sagacity. "She was cryin' to Mr. Hickey, an' he said——"

"He said he'd give me most anythin'—a great big doll with real hair or a gold ring, or anythin' at all if I'd find out why Aunty Evelyn was cryin'."

"But, Doris dear, Mr. Hickey wasn't with Aunty Evelyn; was he?" asked Elizabeth, a fine mingling of reproof and eager curiosity flushing her young face.

"Mr. Hickey didn't say a big doll with real hair, or a gold ring," Carroll interrupted indignantly. "You just made up that part, Doris."

"I didn't make it up either; I thought it," retorted Doris. "He said he'd give me anythin' at all, an' I guess a great big doll with real hair is anythin'. So there!"

"I don't understand, children," murmured the smiling Elizabeth, who was beginning to understand very well, indeed. "You should have come home at once, instead of stopping to talk to Aunty Evelyn. Your luncheon is waiting."

"That's what Aunty Evelyn said," put in Carroll reproachfully, "an' Mr. Hickey said 'Go home at once, children; you're very hungry.' An' I was going; but Doris, she wouldn't go. She——"

"I wasn't a bit hungry then; but I am now, an' I smell somethin' good," observed that young lady, sniffing delicately.

"She said she wasn't in any hurry, an' I guess Mr. Hickey didn't like it. Anyway he laughed, an' he took right hold of Aunty Evelyn's hand, an' she cried some more."

"She didn't cry 'cause he squeezed her hand. She said 'I thought you didn't really like me.' An' Mr. Hickey——. Now don't int'rupt, Carroll; it's rude to int'rupt; isn't it, mother? Mr. Hickey said 'Yes, I do too!' Jus' like that he conterdicted."

"An' then Doris said, 'it's rude to conterdict,' right out to Mr. Hickey she said. That was an awful imp'lite thing for Doris to say; wasn't it, mother? I said it was."

"But Aunty Evelyn said sometimes it wasn't rude to conterdict. An'—'n' she said she was glad Mr. Hickey conterdicted; 'cause she was 'fraid he wasn't goin' to; an' then——"

"She told us to run along home an' tell our mother she was very much mistaken this mornin'."

"No; she said to say our mother was perfec'ly right, an' she was——"

"Well, that's jus' exac'ly what I said. What did Aunty Evelyn mean, mother? An' why did Mr. Hickey make her cry?"

Elizabeth wiped a laughing tear or two from her own eyes. "I'm glad Aunty Evelyn found out that I was right," was all she said. "Now come, children, and let mother wash your hands. Celia has baked a beautiful gingerbread man for Carroll's lunch and a beautiful gingerbread lady for Doris and a cunning little gingerbread baby for Baby Dick."

"Oh, goody! goody!" shouted the children in ecstatic chorus.

In a trice their singular encounter with Aunty Evelyn and Mr. Hickey was forgotten in eager contemplation of the more obvious and immediate future of the gingerbread man, the gingerbread lady and the gingerbread child; each of whom, plump and shining, reposed in the middle of a pink china plate, their black currant eyes widely opened upon destiny.

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