"I think it’s extremely improbable that Samuel will come at all," Mrs. Clara whispered back. "Mrs. Griggs admitted to me just now that it was Samuel who called her up over the ’phone. ’We expect them _all_!’—that’s what she was saying. She tried to put me off with the notion that he was inquiring if the children were all here—something about presents for them—you know how generous Samuel always is with the children. But I’ve no doubt at all he wanted to know if Sylvester was expected. I shall be very much surprised if we see Samuel." The five-o’clock train brought James Dent, Isabel’s husband, and James Dent, Junior; several young people of the house of Lucas, whose mother—Marian Kingsley—was not living; and the children of Samuel, assorted ages, and accompanied by a nurse. The eldest of them, Anne, explained that her father and mother were coming in the roadster. Mrs. Clara looked at Mrs. George. If she had shrieked at her she could not have said more plainly: "You’ll see! The car will break down, they will _not_ come to-night. Else why didn’t they come on the train with the children?" James Dent, Junior, was the last of the evening arrivals to approach his Uncle Stephen’s chair. This was not from any lack of desire to greet his host, but because the instant he put his round, smiling face inside the door, he was set upon by fourteen children—this was their number now—and the dog, and pulled hither and yon and shouted at and barked at and generally given a rousing welcome. He deserved it. If ever Stevenson’s description of the entrance of a happy man into a room fitted anybody it fitted James Dent, Junior. It was, indeed, "as though another candle had been lighted," although in this young man’s case a dozen candles could not have made so great a difference. And if it would be understood how impossible it was for anybody not to like Jim Dent it is only necessary to say that when he—the son of Isabel—reached Aunt Clara and kissed her heartily on her fair cheek she did not repulse him. Repulse him? One might as well try to repulse a summer breeze! "Clear a space, all of you!" commanded James Dent, Junior. "I want a chance at Uncle Stephen. Be off! I’ll not speak to any of you again till I’ve had ten minutes alone with him. Why, I haven’t seen him for a month." A month! Few of the others had seen him for a year. But the young man’s tone expressed such hungry anticipation of a talk with the uncle whom he had not seen for a month that everybody obediently cleared out and left the two together. Then Jim Dent sat down close beside the invalid’s chair and looked straight into his uncle’s gentle blue eyes with his own very brilliant blue ones—and, somehow, for all of the difference between them there was a look of the uncle about the nephew. The well-knit, sturdy young hand gripped the thin old one and held it close, and the smile the two exchanged had in it love and welcome and understanding.