Prince was whining at the apartment door when she reached the top of the two flights of stairs in the semi-lighted stairwell. She put a dimpled finger on the annunciator button, and at once a muffled step approached along the private hall of the Cameron apartment. It wasn't mother's light and busy step, so Carolyn May shrank back beside the doorframe and clapped a pink palm upon her mouth to smother the giggles that immediately arose to her lips. The door opened. A man in his shirtsleeves, with a beard and twinkling blue eyes, appeared in the opening. He peered sharply into the hall and seemed not to recognize the small figure in the tam-o'-shanter, although Prince slipped in between his legs with a joyful snuffle and made his way kitchenward, from which direction certain delightful odours proclaimed that dinner was in preparation. "How do you do, little girl?" said the man. "Did you wish to see anybody in particular?" "Does--does Miss Carolyn May Cameron live here?" asked the little girl, struggling to keep down the giggles. "Why, yes. She does live here--when she's at home," admitted the man doubtfully. "But she isn't at home much." "When is she home the most?" asked Carolyn May, "for I'd like to see her, please." "She's home the most when she's out the least," declared Mr. Cameron. "Almost always she seems to be out when her papa comes home for his once-a-week dinner." "Oh, Papa!" "Oh, Snuggy!" So the make-believe ended as she flung herself into his arms and he caught her up bodily and hugged her--oh, so tightly!--to his breast. "It will be hard sledding, as your Uncle Joe would say, Snuggy, when you are too big for me to pick up this way," he declared, bearing her off to the front room, there to reseat himself in an arm-chair and hold her on his lap. "Shall I ever be as big as that?" Carolyn asked, rather seriously. Her father laughed, and then Carolyn May suddenly remembered her "_won_-derfulest" happening. "See here, Papa Cameron!" she cried, and opened her hand to reveal the twenty dollar bill. "'Pitcher of George Washington!' as your friend, Tim the hackman, says," cried her father, with dancing eyes. "Is there really so much money in this work-a-day world? Twenty whole dollars? My!" "Oh," said Carolyn May, dimpling, "the man who gave it to me must have lots more than this. He was an _awfully_ rich looking man." "And he gave it to _you_?" questioned her father, his curiosity excited. "Oh, yes, Papa. For a friend of mine. She's a pale lady, and the baby's just as _sweet_! But he's awfully skinny. I should think she would have choosed a fatter baby. And the man gave me this money for her because he didn't run over the baby," went on Carolyn May with absolute indifference to her persons and tenses. But Mr. Cameron was used to what he called the little girl's "fearlessness in the use of the English language." She was bound by few hard-and-fast rules of grammar.