"I shall have a governess for him," said Mr. Smith; "but I hope you will not be too much occupied"--his voice was very genial, and as he spoke he bore down hard on his cane and began to struggle to his feet--"not too much occupied to keep a friendly eye upon him." He was standing now, a rather Jove-like figure, before whom Miss Lydia looked really like a little brown grasshopper. "Yes, I trust you will not lose your interest in him," he ended. "I won't," she said, faintly. "I have made all the arrangements," said Johnny's grandfather. "I simply told--ah, the people who know about him, that I was going to take him." He was standing, switching his cane behind him; it hit an encroaching table leg and he apologized profusely. "Mary was badly scared. As if I could not manage a thing like that! I like to scare--him"--the new Mr. Smith lifted his upper lip, and his teeth gleamed--"but, of course, I told her not to worry. Well, I hope you will see him frequently." "I shall," said Miss Lydia. "Of course you and I must tell the same story as to his antecedents. So if you will let me know how you have accounted for him, I'll be a very good parrot!" "I haven't told any stories. I just let people call him Smith, and I just said--to Johnny, and everybody--that I was a friend of his mother's. That's true, you know." "It is true, madam; it is, indeed!" said Mary's father. He bowed with grave courtliness. "There was never a better friend than you, Miss Sampson." "I've been very careful not to tell anything that wasn't true," said Miss Lydia. "I told Johnny his father and mother had lived out West; they did, you know, for four months. Johnny began to ask questions when he was only five; he said he wished _he_ had a mother like other little boys. I had to tell him something, so I told him her name had been Norton. That is true, you know. Mary's middle name is Norton. And I said I didn't know of any cousins or uncles; and that's true. And I said 'I had been told' that his father and mother had been killed in a carriage accident. I _was_ told so; people made it up," said Miss Lydia, simply, "so I just let 'em. I never said his parents had died that way. Well, it made Johnny cry. He used to say: 'Poor mamma! Poor mamma!' I haven't told what you'd call lies; I have only reserved the truth." "Pathetic, his 'wanting' a mother," said Mr. Smith. "Damn my son-in-law! Excuse me, madam." "It would be nice if you would forgive him," Miss Lydia suggested, timidly. He shrugged his shoulders. "I never forgive. . . . Well, I will keep up the geographical fiction and the runaway horses. And now I must not detain you further. I will take the boy to-morrow." He put out his big hand, and Miss Lydia, putting her little one into it, said: "Who is going to adopt him?" "Who?" said Mr. Smith. "Why, I! Who did you suppose was going to--Robertson? My dear Miss Sampson, reassure yourself on that point! That hound shall never get hold of him!"