"Take a bunch as big as your head if you want them." "Lily is so little, three will do her just as well; besides, she's got to remember how we are fixed, so she needn't begin to expect things to come her way by baskets and bunches," said Mickey. "She's bound to be spoiled bad enough as it is. I can't see how I'm going to come out with her, but she's mine, and I'm going to keep her." "Mickey," laughed the woman, "don't you think you swing around to Lily just about the way I do to Peter?" "Well maybe I do," conceded Mickey. "What kind of a car did you say Mr. Bruce has?" "Oh the car is dark green, and the driver has sandy hair; and Mr. Bruce--why you'd know him anywhere! Just look for the finest man you ever saw, if you are out when he goes by, and that will be Mr. Douglas Bruce." "I guess I'll know him if I happen to be out." "Sure lady, you couldn't miss him," replied Mickey. Carefully holding his basket he went down the road. The woman made supper an hour late standing beside the gate watching for a green car. Many whirled past, then at last one with the right look came gliding along; so she stepped out and raised her hand for a parley. The car stopped. "Mr. Douglas Bruce?" she asked. "At your service, Madam!" he answered. "Just a word with you," she said. He arose instantly, swung open the car door, and stepping down walked with her to the shade of a big widely branching maple. The woman looked at him, and said flushing and half confused: "Please to excuse me for halting you, but I had a reason. This afternoon such an attractive little fellow stopped here to ask for a drink in passing. Now Peter and I had decided we'd try our hand at taking a city boy for a week or so for his vacation, and twice Peter has left his work and gone to the trolley station to fetch him, and he failed us. I supposed Peter had missed him, so when I saw the boy coming, just the first glimpse my heart went right out to him----" "Very likely----" assented Mr. Bruce. "He surely is the most winning little chap I ever saw with his keen blue eyes and that sort of light on his forehead," said the woman. "I've noticed that," put in the man. "Yes," she said, "anybody would see that almost the first thing. So I thought he was the boy I was to mother coming, and I went right at the job. He told me quick enough that I was mistaken, but I could see he was in trouble. Someway I'd trust him with my character or my money, but I got to be perfectly sure before I trust him with my children. You see I have three, and if ever any of them go wrong, I don't want it to be because I was _careless_. I thought I'd like to have him around some; my oldest boy is bigger, but just about his age. He said he might be out this way with you this summer and I wanted to ask him in, and do what I could to entertain him; but first I wanted to inquire of you----"