He came over very slowly, and mounted the steps with lagging feet, and he was still staring, his eyes rather dazed. "Oh," said Jane, "I think I know who you are!" She was a little breathless with happy excitement. "Aren't you--I don't know the rest of your name, but aren't you--Jerry?" "Yes, ma'am," said the youth. There was a close color harmony about him; his jubilant cravat picked up the dominant note of his striped silk shirt and the royal purple of his hose struck it again, an octave lower. The removal of his velvet hat disclosed wide and flanging ears which gave his face an expression of quaint comedy, now at variance with his aghast and solemn look. Jane's bright presence there on that dreary doorstep, her hailing of him, her knowledge of his identity, seemed to awake no wonder in him. He looked as if he had finished with surprise; as if nothing could ever startle him again. "I want to see Ethel," he said. "Yes!" said Jane, gladly. "Come!" She left him in the correct and cheerless little reception room and flew up the headlong stairs and into Ethel's room, her face luminous. The good sister was just finishing her packing of Billiken's belongings into the telescope and the child, snug in tiny sweater and knitted cap, watched her absorbedly. Jane caught her up without a word and carried her out of the room. "I'm about ready to go," the young woman called after her, sharply. "Please don't take her things off!" Jane did not answer her. She sped down the stairs as swiftly and easily as a person in a dream, and opened the closed door boldly, without even a knock, and marched in, Billiken in her arms. She felt like an army with banners. Ethel's first fury of grief had spent itself and she sat leaning limply back, her eyes closed, breathing in long, quivering sighs. "Look," cried Jane, "here's Billiken!" Billiken flung herself at her mother with a lilting squeal of joy, and Ethel's eyes opened and narrowed with a cold and appraising scrutiny. Her hands twisted together in her lap; she seemed to be weighing and balancing. At length, with a little brooding cry, she caught the baby in her arms. Michael Daragh smiled sunnily at Jane, but she had no instant to spare for him then. She pulled Ethel to her feet. "Come," she said, imperiously. "Come and bring Billiken!" She led her out of the room. The matron and the Irishman followed them, wondering. Jane was guiding the girl, her face buried against the baby's woolen cap. "Look!" she said again, at the door of the dim reception room. Ethel halted on the threshold, peering through the gathering winter dusk. "Oh,--_Jerry_?" she gasped, uncertainly. The young man from the Gent's Furnishings strode forward to meet her, his eyes on her blurred and swollen face. "Say, listen," he began, "say, listen--" Then his gaze dropped to the child in her arms and grew bleak, and Ethel shrank back and away from him, her eyes wide and terrified.