Yes. I knew it. I sat in the Father’s study, all one fine afternoon, when the other boys were playing ball, and learned that song by rote, in punishment for upsetting his inkwell. It seems very wonderful to me that the Bible should seem a thing of beauty to a youngster. It was at best an unpleasant piece of drudgery for me—more often a form of chastisement. What stirs the deepest emotions in Billy’s heart, only reminds me of a blot of ink on the Father’s desk and the shouts of the boys out in the street whom I might not join. I had been suspecting for some time that although Billy and Marie both call me "Daddy," they were coming to realize that they are not brother and sister. My suspicions were confirmed the other day by Nina. She asked me solemnly what I thought of Billy. And when I declared that he was the straightest, cleanest, finest youngster I knew, she said. "Perhaps. But he is not as fine as Norman was." I said that God had apparently mislaid the mold in which He had cast Norman. "I wish that Marie could have as good a husband as I did—she’s a better girl." Nina has immense respect for her daughter. And Marie deserves it. A habit of philosophizing forces me to realize that the greatest part of the world has failed to appreciate, has in fact utterly ignored the existence of, this marvelous foster daughter of mine. There are, doubtless, many parents who even if they had had the good fortune to know Marie would stubbornly prefer their own daughters. But if I were twenty years younger, I would certainly enter the race against Billy. She gets her looks from her mother—pure Lombard—but she has inherited Norman’s irreverent, incisive vision and his tricks of speech. She decided to follow her father’s chief interest and now, at nineteen, is attending a kindergarten normal school. But the thing, for which I give Marie my highest reverence is her attitude to her mother. She knows the truth. I found that they had talked this over before Norman died. It was his wish that she should not be told by strangers. And so nothing was hidden from her, no questions were evaded and she grew into the knowledge of her mother’s story, with as little shock as she learned the multiplication table. It is very sweet to watch them together, this quiet, sad eyed old woman, who can write with difficulty and this superbly modern girl, who has had every advantage of education. Marie has sense enough to know that very, very few people have been blest with finer mothers. A few nights after this talk with Nina, I found Marie alone in the library reading a red paper covered book by Earl Krautsky—"The Road to Power." Across the corner, in his big, boyish handwriting, was scrawled, "William Barton." "Marionette," I said, thinking of what her mother had said, "Do you believe in free love?" "Not for a minute," she snapped, "it’s just another of your man tricks to get the better of your superiors."