When Leslie began the actual work of closing her home, and loading what would be wanted for the country, she found the task too big for the time allotted, so wisely telephoned Douglas that she would be compelled to postpone seeing him until the following day. "Leslie," laughed Douglas over the telephone, "did you ever hear of the man who cut off his dog's tail an inch at a time, so it wouldn't hurt so badly?" "I have heard of that particular dog." "Well this process of cutting me out of seeing you a day at a time reminds me of 'that particular dog,' and evokes my sympathy for the canine as never before." "It's a surprise I am getting ready for you Douglas!" "It _is_ a surprise all right," answered Douglas, "and 'Bearer of Morning,' I have got a surprise for you too." "Oh goody!" cried Leslie. "I adore surprises." "You'll adore this one!" "You might give me a hint!" she suggested. "Very well!" he laughed. "Since last I saw you I have seen the loveliest girl of my experience." "Delightful! Am I to see her also?" "Undoubtedly!" explained Douglas. "And you'll succumb to her charms just as I did." "When may I meet her?" asked Leslie eagerly. "I can't say; but soon now." "All right!" agreed the girl. "Be ready at four tomorrow." Leslie sat in frowning thought a moment, before the telephone; then her ever-ready laugh bubbled. "Why didn't I think of it while I was talking?" she wondered. "Of course Mickey has taken him to visit his Lily. I must see about that wrong back before bone and muscle harden." Then she began her task. By evening she had a gasoline stove set up, the kitchen provisioned, her father's room ready and arrangements sufficiently completed that she sent the car to bring him to his dinner of cornbread and bacon under an apple tree scattering pink petals beside the kitchen door, with every lake breeze. Then they went fishing and landed three black bass. Douglas Bruce did not mind one day so much, but he resented two. When he greeted Mickey that morning it was not with the usual salutation of his friends, so the boy knew there was something not exactly right. He was not feeling precisely jovial himself. He was under suspended judgment. He knew that when Mr. Bruce had time to think, and talk over the situation with Miss Winton, both of them might very probably agree with the woman who said the law would take Lily from him and send her to a charity home for children. Mickey, with his careful drilling on the subject, was in rebellion. _How_ could the law take Lily from him? Did the law know anything _about_ her? Was she in the _care_ of the law when he found her? Wouldn't the law have allowed her to _die_ grovelling in filth and rags, inside a few more hours? He had not infringed on the law in any way; he had merely saved a life the law had forgotten to save. Now when he had it in his possession and in far better condition than he found it, how had the law _power_ to step in and rob him?