"Oh, Auntie! Auntie! I'm so glad you've come. Mamma is coming to see me, too. Isn't she?" and Dorothy, having caught sight of Virginia, ran to her, and then, not to be denied, in her childish way climbed up on the bench beside her and affectionately clasped her little arms about her neck. "Papa doesn't like her," she proceeded, in a low, serious, confidential manner, "and wants me not to like her, too. But I shall like her. I shall always love-dear mamma-as-long-as-I-live!" The last few words were uttered in a quivering voice, but with a decision that appeared marvelous in one so young. Folding her arms about the child, Virginia fondly looked into her eyes. "God bless you, sweet, winsome soul!" And then they kissed. "Aunty, won't you take me to mamma?" pleaded the child. A ray of light had at last unexpectedly illumined a path for Virginia to pursue. Suddenly releasing the child, she arose to her feet and said, with animation: "Some good may come of it. I will seek Mrs. Harris and have her detain John while I bring Constance--and Dorothy together--before he meets her. Yes, darling," she said, taking Dorothy's hand; "you shall see your mother." CHAPTER XX. On a low point of land formed by a bend in the Willamette, a couple of boys were playing at what is termed "skipping." The exercise consisted in throwing a stone so as to make it skim along the surface of the water in a series of long skips, the greater number of skips attesting the skill of the thrower. The surface of the river was very smooth and placid, which was a factor in tempting the boys to the exercise. They had been at it for some time and, boy-like, in their enthusiasm, had overdone it, and consequently were beginning to fag, when one of them suddenly spied an exceptionally smooth, round flat stone, suitable for the purpose, and stooped to pick it up. The other boy, a short distance behind him, seeing his opportunity, cried out in a frolicksome spirit: "Hi! Gene! Hold, there." And he immediately ran and, placing his two hands on the stooping boy's back, lightly leaped over him, straddle fashion, and then himself took a stooping position further on, subject to a like performance. At once the sport known as "leap-frog" was entered into with zest by the boys. It carried them some distance along the river shore, and they were so engrossed with the new exercise, which sustained in their case, at all events, the old adage that, "A change of occupation is a good recreation," as to be entirely oblivious of approaching a solitary woman dressed in sober gray, sitting on a stump of driftwood near the water's edge and gazing vacantly on the river. One of the boys, named Gene, big-limbed, loose-jointed and clumsy, in doing his turn, and while astraddle the "frog," lost his balance and tumbled sideways, dragging the under boy over with him. The smaller boy, named Spike, got to his feet first, and with a fire in his eye, angrily said: "Youse do it again and I'll smash you one."