Champney grew suddenly grave. "Do you realize, Aileen, that this meeting to-day in the shed is the first in which we three, Father Honore, Mr. Van Ostend, and I, have ever been together under one roof since that night twenty-one years ago when I first saw you?" "Why, that doesn't seem possible--but it _is_ so, isn't it? Wasn't that strange!" "Yes, and no," said Champney, looking at his mother. "I thought of our first meeting one another at the Vaudeville, as we three stood there together in the shed looking upwards to The Gore; and Father Honore told me afterward that he was thinking of that same thing. We both wondered if Mr. Van Ostend recalled that evening, and the fact of our first acquaintance, although unknown to one another." "I wonder--" said Aileen, musingly. Champney spoke abruptly again; there was a note of uneasiness in his voice: "I wonder what keeps Honore--I'll just run up the road and see if he's coming. If he isn't, I will go on till I meet the boys. I wish," he added wistfully, "that McCann felt as kindly to me as Billy does to my son; I am beginning to think that old grudge of his against me will never yield, not even to time;--I'll be back in a few minutes." Aileen watched him out of sight; then she turned to Aurora Googe. "We are blest in this turn of affairs, aren't we, mother? This meeting is the one thing Champney has been dreading--and yet longing for. I'm glad it's over." "So am I; and I am inclined to think Father Honore brought it about; if you remember, he said nothing about Mr. Van Ostend's being here when he stopped just now." "So he didn't!" Aileen spoke in some surprise; then she added with a joyous laugh: "Oh, that dear man is sly--bless him!"--But the tears dimmed her eyes. II "Go straight home with Honore, Billy, as straight as ever you can," said Father Honore to eight-year-old Billy McCann who for the past year had constituted himself protector of five-year-old Honore Googe; "I'll watch you around the power-house." Little Honore reached up with both arms for the usual parting from the man he adored. The priest caught him up, kissed him heartily, and set him down again with the added injunction to "trot home."