It was easy to say “get him to go away,” but unless he ejected him by sheer force, he did not see how it was to be done. As for Mr. Gus, he himself saw that the time was come for some further step. First he buttoned his coat as preparing for action, and put down his hat, with its huge hat-band, upon the table. Then he hesitated for a moment between Lady Markham and the young people; finally he said to himself reflectively, almost sadly, “What claim have I upon her?” He moved a step towards Paul and Alice, and cleared his throat. And it was now that Providence interposed to help the stranger. Just as he had made up his mind to address the young man whom he had superseded, there came a sound of footsteps at the door. It was opened a very little, timidly, and through the chink Bell’s little soft voice (she was always the spokeswoman) was heard with a little sobbing catch in it, pleading-- “May we come in now, mamma?” The children thought everybody was gone. They had been huddled up, out of the way, it seemed, for weeks. They were longing for their natural lives, for their mother, for some way out of the strangeness and desolation of this unnatural life they had been leading. They were all in the doorway, treading upon each other’s heels in their eagerness, but subdued by the influences about which took the courage out of them. It seemed to Mr. Gus an interposition of Providence on his behalf. He went quickly to the door and opened to them, then returned, leading one of the little girls in each hand. “I told you I was a relation,” he said very gravely and kindly, with a certain dignity which now and then took away all that was ridiculous in him. “I am your brother, though you would not think it; your poor dear father who is gone was my father too. He was my father when he was not much older than Paul. I should like to be very fond of you all if you would let me. I would not hurt one of you for the world. Will you give me a kiss, because I am your brother, Bell and Marie?” The children looked at him curiously with their big eyes, which they had made so much larger with crying. They looked pale and fragile in their black frocks, with their anxious little faces turned up to him. “Our brother!” they both said in a breath, wondering; but they did not shrink from the kiss he gave, turning with a quivering of real emotion from one to another.